A Xmas story...

Last Friday I had to work out at our HQ office until 1:00 pm. I was so behind on my xmas shopping I decided that I was going to hit up Walmart in chesterfield valley when I was done working. This way I wouldn't have Alivia with me and hopefully I could get everything done.

Earlier that morning, I had gone online and purchased 6 tickets to sesame street live. When I got the confirmation back I realized it had the wrong day on it so I had to call and change it, well of course they couldn't just change it, they had to cancel that order and do a new one, so my credit card was going to be charged two times for the same thing and then a credit would show up later.

When I got off work I went to walmart. I loaded up my cart trying to remember everything I needed to get. I stood in line, loaded all my stuff on the belt and then swiped my card...the girl looked at me and said "it didn't charge" i said "what do you mean" she said "it doesn't say declined it just says it didn't charge, try it again" so i did and the same thing happened and she says "are you sure you have enough on there" and to that i say "of course it does i checked it before I got here, i will call them and see what the problem is" so she bagged up all of my stuff and i stood at the end of the register, completely humiliated and called my credit card company. of course there is a line behind me that heard every thing that was going on. i got ahold of my credit card people and they said "are you trying to make a purchase at walmart" and i said "um, yea that's why i'm calling, what's going on" she said "did you make two purchases this morning for sesame street live" i said "yes" she said "well we just wanted to make sure it was you and that your card hadnt gotten stolen, we'll remove the block" i'm thinking, hey, that's a great idea!! so the guy that was standing behind me is buying a ton of gloves and long underwear, he leans over to me, taps me on the arm and said "is your card going to work" i said "yes they just wanted to make sure it was me because i made a big purchase this morning" and he said "well if it doesn't go through i will pay for your stuff" i said "no way, it will be fine, thank you though" he said " i will be more than happy to, i don't mind, it will be my merry xmas to you" (my total was $380 and he knew that!!!!) i couldn't believe that he offered to do that, it really touched me, and he wasn't creepy or anything, he was a very nice looking older guy. he said that he was buying all of the gloves and long underwear for homeless people in st louis!! his total was $580. He was swiping his card and said to me "don't go anywhere, if my card doesn't work i will need to use yours!!" of course he was kidding. I thought that was the coolest thing every, of course I could never accept anything like that but it was really cool that he was ready to pay if I wasn't able to.

Alivia's new thing of the week. When I pick her up from daycare, she all of a sudden has to go potty, wash her hands and get a drink from the fountain. Tuesday when I picked her up she was taking forever so I went looking for her, her and another little girl were getting drinks out of he fountain.

me: Liv, don't put your mouth on that, it's yucky. Just drink the water.
the other little girl: it's ok you can put your mouth on there (talking to liv)
liv: i need to get a drink
me: that's fine, just don't put your mouth on there
little girl : i put my mouth on there
me: well that's yucky, because if another little kid puts their mouth on there and they are sick then you will get sick too
little girl : but i'm already sick!!

what could i say?!?

then this morning, we were getting in the car and my neighbors are having some landscaping doen, there were a bunch of workers in her yard. alivia yells "hey boy, whachudoing?" lucky her voice is about as loud as a mouse so they didn't hear her but it was funny

super busy weekend

I took off last friday because I had a home and garden party friday night. So of course I needed the whole day to shop for all of the food i needed to make that night, saturday and sunday and cleaning of course. The party went ok. I love their stuff! I was supposed to go up to the bowling alley after my party for anthony's 12th birthday party but my last guests didn't leave until 10:30 and I was beat. Saturday morning I woke up and made pasta con broccoli for brayden's bday party. Before I went over there I had to take Anthony's card to him since I didn't make it the night before, then we went to brayden's party. He got lots of spiderman stuff-that's his new thing. The party went well, on my way home from that I met Mindy to pick up lilly. I was watching her for the night. The next morning we were supposed to go to brunch with Rob's dad but he cancelled since the weather wasn't great, so we rescheduled for this weekend. I made a batch of chex mix and then we went to a cookie exchange. When we got home from that I went to rachel's mom house and picked up the christmas tree that she was so gracious to give to me. I went home and put it up and it's BEAUTIFUL!! I love it. Needless to say, sunday night I was exausted. This weekend isn't looking much better. Friday night we have a birthday party for my cousin, I have to work saturday morning and we are doing our rescheduled lunch with rob's dad on sunday. I haven't had much time to get any shopping done since I've been so busy with all of this other stuff. I've been trying to christmas shop in between all of the birthday shopping!! I really don't want to be one of those last minute shoppers but it's kinda looking that way...

It's rough being two...

So, We're potty training. Daycare is working with Alivia alot and she's wearing pull ups now. The only problem is that she wants to go potty every 5 minutes. She was in the bathroom almost all night last night. This picture is of her sitting on her potty chair with her feet up, life is rough. She's doing pretty well, she had "big girl panties" on for about an hour last night with no accidents, although I don't know how there could have been since she was in the bathroom for most of that time.

Amber watched alivia on sunday night while me and rob were at bowling. Her and brayden had alot of fun together. Amber had laid sheets over her kitchen table to make them a fort. She said they sat under the table and ate spiderman cheese it's for like an hour-giggling the whole time!! When we came to pick her up, amber was just getting them out of the bathtub. Alivia came running past me down the hall into the living room where bryan and rob were sitting on the couch. She dropped her towel, held her arms out and said "TA DA!!" I was dying, Rob and Bryan were just kinda like "um, yea, ok" I don't know where she gets this stuff from, but she cracks me up.

Monday night, we were sitting at the dinner table and she had a baby doll tucked under her arm while she was eating. Out of nowhere, she pulls the babys head up by it's hair, gets in the baby's face and says "don't tell me no!" she looked at rob and said "baby need nose in corner" so she proceeded to get up, and put the baby in the corner she came back and said "her not tell me no" Rob told her to go back and get her baby and tell her to be a good girl and give her a hug.

I got her xmas present from santa yesterday from Toys R Us. It's the disney princess magical talking nursery. It's awesome. It's a crib, swing and changing table. I can't wait to give it to her, she's going to love it!

After the normal thanksgiving dinner at mom's house we packed up the car and headed to mississippi. Rob has alot of family that live there and it's a really nice get away! They live right smack dab in the middle of memphis and tunica!! It's about a 5 hour drive. We got there around 9:00 thursday night. Rob's cousin had made a whole fried turkey just for him. Rob, George (our brother in law) and myself sat around and almost ate the whole thing-it was awesome. We spent the night at his cousin's house that night. We got up the next morning, got ready and headed over to his aunt's house. They made a huge breakfast with ham, sausage, bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, hash browns, it was awesome. After breakfast, Kelly, George and I headed to graceland. I really wanted to take alivia but she was having a good time with the other kids and rob wasn't going either so she said she wanted to stay with daddy. I've only been to graceland one other time with kelly and we just visited the house. This time we saw the house, the cars, the motorcycles, the after dark musuem. It was fun, it was really cold that day. We were there for about 4 hours. We headed back to the house and then we went to tunica. They had a crab leg buffet that night it was really good. We played for awhile and got back to the house around 12. We got up the next morning and had that same breakfast again, it was just as good the second time-when these people make a meal they don't mess around!! Rob played a poker tournament at the casino all day saturday. The rest of us stayed at the house and watched movies. That night kelly and I decided that we were going to make dinner for everyone just to show them our appreciation for taking us in for the weekend. We made a huge hash brown casserole, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, tomato cucumber salad and we bought fried chicken, it was really good too. You never have a bad meal in the south!! We stayed in and watched movies that night too. We woke up sunday morning and left to go back home. It was a miserable drive home, it rained the whole way. We got back around 2:15 on sunday. we all took showers and put our pj's on.

Rob spent all last night working on our bedroom and bathroom, I feel like it's never gonna be done!! All of a sudden alivia is obsessed with my cd from the movie walk the line. I played it in the car on the drive back on sunday and we got in the car this morning and she said "play music mommy?" I said "this is music" she pointed to the cd player and said "play that music" i put the cd in and she said "thank you" I like that cd but i don't think i can listen to it every day. That's about it for now. We have a busy couple of weekends coming up. This friday is a party for some of our friends that are getting married this week, saturday is alex and brady's bday party, sunday we have to bowl. The friday after that is my home and garden party, saturday is brayden's birthday party and sunday is a family cookie day thing. The holidays have def arrived. I threw my xmas tree away last year so i have to go buy another tree too!

Last friday night Jack and Anthony spent the night. Alivia and Jack had so much fun playing together. On Saturday we went to the circus!! It was so fun. When we first go there Jack was crying and wouldn't look!! He warmed up after about 15 minutes though. Alivia loved all of it. Rob even went with us!! We stayed home all day sunday. It was so nice. I got alot of cleaning done, I made some bread in my bread machine, cooked dinner in the crockpot all day and even made a cake. Alivia and I stayed in our jammies all day. It was wonderful! Monday I wasn't scheduled to work the desk in my office and Amber was off so we decided to take care of wedding stuff. I called a florist to see if we needed an appointment and they said they couldn't fit us in, I called another florist and they said if amber didn't know what she wanted then it would be a waste of their time and on the third call, we finally made an appointment. We were there for almost 2 hours and amber is very happy. They will me making all of the flowers for the wedding party, all of the centerpieces and even her cake topper. That was a huge thing to scratch off the list. I've been calling around for rehearsal dinner ideas, no luck yet.

Alivia's vocabulary grows and grows every day, I can't believe some of the things she says and comes up with. Yesterday morning in the car she was talking to me and I guess I didn't respond to her fast enough and she said "MOMMY? I talkin to you" Last night, she wanted me to open the front door so she could go outside to my car and go bye bye and she wanted me to stay home and watch her baby. She handed me her doll and said "Watch me baby, her be good" "I haf a go to yerk" This went on and on. She was makin me nuts. Then in the bath tub she informed me that she needed to hurry up because "maw maw pickin me up little bit" She is so independent and has such an imagination. She is such a neat kid.

So we are going to tunica after we do thanksgiving at my mom's on thursday. We will stay there until sunday. we are going to go to graceland while we are in the area. Kelly and I went to graceland before but george will be with us this time. Elvis is george's idol, so i'm sure it will be a different experience with him there. Today is kelly's birthday and we are going to dinner at the boat i think. Alivia and I have had ALOT of quality time so I'm looking forward to a night out!!

Yesterday on the way home from daycare alivia told me the sun was in her eyes and she needed sunglasses-this is all I could come up with!!

This is a funny email I got:

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!! If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!! When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways. Yadda, yadda, yadda.......... And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, yo ur drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and asteroids' and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed! Sure , we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards! And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up.We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980! Regards , The over 30 Crowd

Are you aware that you are in public?!?

I work next door to a Schnucks Grocery store and I visit it frequently. Our Hq office was paying for the branch offices to have Ice Cream so I got designated to do the shopping-go figure! Anyway, I was in the Ice Cream Aisle trying to figure out how to get the most for our money and a little girl about 3 or 4 years old opened up a door and grabbed a box of Ice Cream. Her mom came up behind her and told her to put it away telling her they had ice cream at home. The girl immediatly bursts into tears trying to convince her mom that they really needed to get some more because the ice cream at home was gone. They went into the next aisle. I was walking around still trying to weigh my options and ran into the mom and daughter again, she was still crying then I hear her say "If you were behaving then I would be nice but when you act like a stupid idiot, I don't give two shits!!"

I'm glad she wasn't looking at me when she said that because my eyes got huge and my mouth dropped!! I couldn't believe she said that to a child that young. I see serious issues in that family's future......

Interesting....

If you ever feel stupid, then just read on. If you've learned to speak fluent English, you must be a genius! This little treatise on the lovely language we share is only for the brave. Peruse at your leisure, English lovers. Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.
2. The farm was used to produce produce.
3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4. We must polish the Polish furniture.
5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum
9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10. I did not object to the object.
11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13. They were too close to the door to close it.
14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear
20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests
21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France (Surprise!).

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? Doesn't it seem crazy that you Can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up and down at the same time and, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. Why do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And while we're at it, why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"?

I had such a busy weekend. Alivia and I went up to the bowling alley friday night to watch rob bowl for a little bit. I had to work saturday morning till 1, then alivia and I went to a birthday party. We went home and laid down for about 2 hours and then we all went to brian and rachel's bon fire. We got home about 10:15. Sunday morning Alivia and I went to see Rob's dad and grandpa in desoto. We got home from there about 5. I sat down for about 15 minutes then I had to go to the bowling alley for a few minutes, amber asked me to watch brayden for a little bit so I picked him up while I was out. I got home about 7:15. Alivia and Brayden played in her room the rest of the night. I was downstairs trying to get some laundry done -since I had been gone all weekend. We have a monitor in our room so I could hear them playing. I heard some splashing noises and then lots of laughter. Brayden loves to play in the humidifier. So I ran upstairs and of course they were both soaking wet as was the carpet. So I put that up and went back downstairs. They were quiet for a few minutes so I went to check on them again and as I was coming down the hallway I heard alivia say "bubba, tut me hair" When I walked in her room she was sitting at her vanity table and handing brayden her play scissors that came with her table. He grabbed them and stood behind her and proceeded to pretend to cut her hair!! he then put the scissors on the table and said "done" I went and got my camera :

The neverending birthday

Rob's birthday started Thursday night with presents and a cookie cake from me and alivia, friday was actually his birthday, saturday was his party and yesterday we went to his mom's for dinner and he opened his presents. When we got home last night, he had missed a card, so I handed it to him and said "This is it, your birthday is officially over!!!" The party was SOO much fun. I think everyone had a really good time. He got a TON of gift cards and some scratch off tickets, he won about $30 off the tickets!! I asked him if we were going out to eat tonight and he said "what for" I said "did you SEE all of those gift cards-why WOULDN'T we?!?" He got gift cards to Long Horn, Chipolte, Tony's on main street, O'Charleys, QT, Burlington and Red Lobster!!!

This weekend is going to be another busy one. I have to work Saturday, then I have a birthday party then a bon fire. On Sunday, I am taking Alivia to see Rob's Grandpa in DeSoto. I think I have a party Friday night too, who knows. It's always something!!

Happy 30th Birthday Rob!!

Rob turns the big 3-oh today!! Alivia and I went shopping last night for his presents and gave them to him last night. We went to the mall on a mission for a white pair of air jordan's. We couldn't find the exact one that he wanted but found one that was close, he loved it. We also got him a hat and a hoodie from American Eagle. We went to Aeropostle first. Everything in there had "1987" on it. Amber, Bryan and Brayden went with us, I asked Amber "Am I too old to shop here?!? Everything says 1987" So went went over to American Eagle and ironically most of their stuff says "1977" on it. Which of course, is the year that rob was born. Then we went to Mrs. Fields and ordered him a cookie cake and the lid of the box said "oven fresh cookies since 1977" I thought that was so weird. It seemed to be the theme of the night. He loved all of his presents. He has to bowl tonight and tomorrow night is the big party which is not a suprise anymore. WHATEVER!! I can't wait though, all of our friends and family will be there and we will have Karaoke-what more can you ask for?!?

A new found independence

The first two weeks of daycare drop off were not fun. Actually the first two days were fine and they went downhill from there. There was screaming, crying, begging. It wasn't fun for either one of us. All of a sudden this week Alivia LOVES daycare. On Monday, She reached out for the teacher and before I left she was already helping the teacher get the art project ready. Yesterday was the kicker. We walked in and she was clinging to me, then she sat up, pushed me and said "go" I was sort of glad on one hand because I didn't have to walk out of there wondering if I was the worst mom ever for leaving her there in her time of need. Then again now she WANTS me to leave-WHAT HAPPENED?!? Today was the same thing, we walked in she hugged me, pushed me and said "GO Bye Bye" then looked at the teached pointed at me and said "mommy, go" like she was saying "tell her to leave!!"

Last night she was in bed and we were going through the normal routine and then she said "get away me, mommy" WHAT IS HAPPENING?!? all of a sudden she is 2 and doesn't want me around!! Well, that's not true all of the time but I'm not sure I like it!! I told her it hurt my feelings when she said that to me and she said "go bye bye" I think this is the beginning of something very bad.......

Typical day in the life of Rob White

Tuesday September 09/18

10:30 AM Call to Wife: "Can you look on the internet and see if you can find any places hiring painters"

11:00 AM Wife calls back: "I found a place, I'm faxing them your resume"

11:05 AM Call to wife: "They called me and I'm going to talk to them this afternoon"

3:30 PM Call to wife: "I start on Monday"



I don't know of any other human that decides that they want a new job and 4 hours later have one. He's so funny....

Self diagnosed

I self diagnosed myself over the weekend. I believe that I am a pregnancy hypochondriac. As you know, I was sick last saturday (over a week ago) My stomach has not felt right ever since, I haven't really been that hungry and at night my stomach actually kind of feels upset. I lay in bed at night and think to myself "Maybe I'm pregnant"

This happens alot, I will not feel good or have a werid cramp and my first thought is "Maybe I'm pregnant" Now, I 'm not trying to get pregnant nor am I exactly ready to have another child yet. I believe I've had this condition ever since pregnancy ever became probable. I've never told anyone about it until this weekend. Amber and I went to lunch and I told her about it and she was cracking up at me. I told her that I never tell anyone when I'm thinking these things and I don't go buy a pregnancy test or anything (not all the time anyway ;) ) She said that's what's so weird about it-that I don't tell anyone because I ACTUALLY think I might be pregnant!!

I had my parents over for dinner saturday night and we were sitting around talking and my mom said "Your dad was wondering if there was some kind of announcement or something and that's why you were inviting us over-like one of you was going to have another baby or something" I looked at Amber and she just rolled her eyes (because we had just had this conversation earlier that day) so I told my mom about my condition too, she also laughed at me.

So, I'm not sure what I can do about it but I think admitting it is the first step!!!

I have to go now and take a pregnancy test......

So, Alivia cries every day when I drop her off at daycare. It breaks my heart. I have been kinda hanging out with her before I leave-they're probably going to start making me pay tuition for my self!! This morning the kids were eating breakfast and I over heard the following coversation-totally random of course:

little girl:I can go potty on the toilet
little boy: No you can't
little girl: Yes I can
little boy: No you can't, you go potty in your pants
little girl: I'm a BIG GIRL
little boy: You're not 4
little girl: (silence)
little boy: You're not 4

The teachers weren't really paying attention, I guess they're used to those kind of conversations, I thought it was hilarious.

I got a note on tuesday that Alivia needed wipes. When I got in the car I started thinking, today is only her 5th day at this place and on her first day I brought in a package of 80 wipes-5 days ago. I called up there to clarify that she needed wipes, they said yes because they use them to wipe their hands and face with them sometimes. I'm kind of protesting and I'm not going to bring wipes in until next week. There is not reason she needs to use 80 wipes in two weeks. That's crazy!

I bribed alivia this morning with Jelly Beans, I know that's terrible but I really want her to want to go to daycare. I'm sure she'll get used to it and it will be fine....I hope

Pass the pepto please....

There is nothing worse then hearing a two year old throw up through a baby monitor. And then that feeling of walking into the room not knowing what you are going to find. This is how my day last thursday started. I was supposed to work the front desk in my office from 9-1 that day. I had no phone numbers to get ahold of anyone, rob works an hour away and everyone else was at work already. Alivia has been known to thrown up one time and then be fine...I was hoping that was how this was going to turn out. I got in the shower and got ready for work and got her dressed. She fell asleep in the car on the way to daycare and I sat in the parking lot for about 10 minutes letting her sleep as long as possible. I was just going to tell the daycare that she wasn't feeling well because I knew if I told them that she threw up they would send me back home. We walk in and I'm hoping for the best- next thing I know, we are running to the bathroom. DANGIT-she blew it!! I said ok, we're going back home. I went into work with her attached to my shoulder and was able to find someone to cover for me. By that afternoon she was feeling better and friday we went back to daycare. Saturday morning I woke up at 3 and it all went downhill from there. I spent 50% of the day in the bathroom and the other 50% on the couch. It was not fun. Yesterday Rob was sick all day. He ended up calling in sick to work today. I don't feel 100% better myself either. Hopefully, this has run it's course now and we can get back to normal!! The pictures above are completely unrelated to this post but I thought they were too cute. The second one is her drinking out of an apple juice container that's about as big as she is!

I knew I was forgetting something

I got woken up this morning by a police officer knocking on my door. I walked to the door and a million thoughts were running through my mind (see blog about crazy neighbor) I open it up and he says "Sorry to wake you, someone hit your mailbox, actually they knocked down all the mailboxes" The hill in front of our street is very slick when it's wet out and someone went sliding down the hill and took out all the mailboxes (4 total) and my neighbor's trash! There were kids waiting near there for the bus, thank god they were standing far enough back from the street, they didn't get hit. So I guess I have to get a new mailbox now. We have lived in the house for 5 years and had the same one the whole time. I'm just really glad the kids weren't in the way. They were towing away her car when I was leaving for work, my neighbor's yard got torn up a little (he's a jerk anyway!!) too bad he wasn't standing out there when it happened-ok i'm just kidding (sort of)

A Few things

Yesterday was Alivia's first day of daycare. We pulled up yesterday morning and I was a little nervous. We walked in and dropped of her diapers, wipes, blanket and pillow in her classroom. The other kids were outside playing. We walked outside and alivia was attached to my leg. We stood there for a few minutes while she checked everything out. She walked away real slow and grabbed a toy and then came back and grabbed my leg. There was a little rocking toy so I took her over to it and she got right on. She started rocking and then a little boy came over and started playing with another toy right next to her. I waited a few more minutes and told her I was leaving. I asked her for a kiss and she told me to give her a hug. I walked away. When I got back inside I looked out the window and she was still fine. When I got outside I peeked through the fence and she was still fine, so I left. The teacher said I could call as many times as I wanted! I only called once and they said she had been playing all day and was fine. When I picked her up last night they gave me a paper of what she had done that day. There was a checkoff list of things -I was a kind friend, I was a big helper, I participated in class learning etc, etc, the only thing that wasn't checked off was "I was quiet" I thought that was funny. She went back today ok so I guess she liked it!!

After I picked her up last night, we were going to meet my mom at the mall. We had a little bit of time so we ate dinner. She was being really good and we walked around a little bit and then met up with my mom. After awhile I don't know if she was bored or tired or both but she got really crabby and was being a monster. She was not in her stroller and I kept trying to put her back and in and one time she said "I don't yike it" and I said "Well, I don't like it either" We ended up going home, I gave her a bath and she went right to bed. This morning she kept saying "I don't yike it ear, mommy" It took me a few times to figure out she was saying "I don't like it either" I was thinking oh great-hopefully she doesn't say that at daycare today!!

I went to lunch today with Rachel and Alena. We went to Napoli pizza, it's right by my office. We each got a pizza and a salad. My bill was around $10 and hers was around $12. When we got done we went up to pay and their credit card machine wouldn't work so we got free lunch! Sweet!!! I told them we will def go back again-we had been there before. That always makes for a great day!!

I can't wait to pick alivia up tonight to see what her sheet says today!

Make that To-Go please

So I love Mexican food and there is a Mexican restaurant in the same plaza as my work. I got done with my duty turn at one and started my trek to the other end of the plaza. I walk in and was immediately greeted. I said "I wanted to get something to go" he started to hand me a menu and I said "Oh, I already know what I want" I followed him to the counter so I could place my order, I told him what I wanted and added that I would also like a soda. He took my money, I grabbed a Togo menu to read while I waited, he then said something to one of the other workers "blah blah senorita" (that's what I got out of it!!) The kid got up and started to make my soda. I sat down and began to read the menu. He brought over my soda and set it in front of me and then handed me a straw and said something I said "what?" he said something again and again I said "what?" and then he said "diet?" (i ordered diet coke) I said "Yes" which led me to believe that he didn't just ask me if i was drinking diet soda the first two times. I kept trying to read the menu because when I'm in places like this I try not to make eye contact. The kid sat at the table next to me (where he got up from in the first place) and said "working?" I said "yes I work down at AAA" he said "are you married" i said "yes and today is my anniversary actually" he stopped talking to me after that but every one of those creeps that walked by me looked at me all smiley and creepy. The guy came out with my food and I stood up and then he wouldn't let go of the bag and he was smiling at me. So I kinda tugged at it and said "thanks" I love their food but I just don't know if it's worth the sexual harassment!! I don't know if I possess some quality that attracts Mexican guys but this happens to me all the time with these people or maybe it's because they're just looking to get some from anything that walks. Who knows but maybe next time I have a craving I will have one of the guys at my work pick up my food!!

Happy Anniversary!!

Today is our 3rd Anniversary. We had to celebrate last night because Rob is bowling tonight and tomorrow and I bowl thursday. We went to Bristol's for dinner. It was...ok. That was the theme of the whole dinner. They have sweet biscuits-they were kinda dry and didn't have too much taste. The waitress asked me how they were i said "they're...ok" Then we got clam chowder and she asked again how it was"it's...ok." Rob ordered catfish which came with garlic mashed potatoes. The potatoes were really good but the he said the catfish was...ok. I got a filet and king crab legs. I ordered the steak medium and it was well done but it was tender so I didn't sent it back. The crab legs were amazing and I also got garlic mashed potatoes which were good. I had gotten a cosmo from the bar and they took it off our bill since my steak wasn't cooked right, they also gave us a free dessert since it was our anniversary, the bill was still $83. We def wouldn't go there again but all in all it was..ok. Rob gave me a very nice card this morning and I guess that about sums up our anniversary celebration. After dinner we went to Ashley furniture, he can't find any bedroom sets that he likes. I however, like them all!!

Alivia took a spill down our basement steps last night. She was standing at the top with a baby in one hand and a string cheese in the other, she got her feet tangled up and down she went. She went down most of the way on her feet but the last one ended up on her face. She had a scratch on her arm and her nose is pretty red.

I had another garage sale last weekend, it was the 4th this year. It feels so good to have all of that junk out of the house. I'm getting better as I get older about getting rid of stuff that I'm not using and I make a little bit of money in the meantime.

We're going to perryville this weekend. I think we'll leave saturday and come back sunday. I think the weather is supposed to be really nice too. Rob wants to catch some more fish. I think that's all I got for now...

Here we go again...

Last night was my first night of bowling on thursdays, which means I have to leave Alivia home with Rob. I even said to the girls last night "I wonder what I will find when I get home" Everything seemed to be pretty normal when I got home last night. And then when Alivia got up this morning this is what I found:

All of her pj's are in the same drawer, it's just a matter of picking out what goes together. I could not stop laughing when I got her up this morning. The bottom's she has on are blue with red cherries and the top is purple with a cow on it. I'm laughing right now. But he did give her a bath, and get her dressed and she was asleep in her bed so I can't complain too much, but seriously does it look like these clothes go together?!?!?

These are some pictures I took with my phone. Alivia likes to sit on the couch and watch TV while I get ready for work in the morning. She has to have her milk, some dry cereal in a little bowl, her blanket and the remote. She cracks me up. The other pic is of liv and bray playing on amber's porch. The other day I was in the bathroom getting ready for work and Alivia brought her baby in and said "Mommy, baby, potty" I said "oh, you're baby has to go potty?" She said yes and proceeded to hold her baby over the toilet. A few seconds later she said "good job baby" and flushed the toilet. A few minutes later apparantly the baby had to go potty again so she held her baby over the toilet again and I heard her say "I dot chu baby" (I got you baby) When I hold her I always tell her I got her and won't let her fall. She never ceases to suprise me with the things she picks up from us. She likes to talk on the phone all of a sudden too. She talked to my dad on the phone for about 5 minutes the other day, she was walking around the house with the cordless telling him everything she was doing. It was funny.

Since Alivia is now two, I've been contemplating taking her to daycare. There are a few things that bother me about my current child care situation. One big thing is that I'm not able to claim my weekly child care fee on my taxes because my sitter doesn't claim in on her taxes. Maybe I shouldn't put that out there...but it's true. So I toured a daycare yesterday and I liked it. They have a special program for two year olds. The fee is only $22 more a week than what I am paying now and I can claim in on my taxes at the end of the year. They have bulletin boards in each room saying what they'll be doing each week and a set menu and the lady said I could have copies of everything every week. I really like that. They have sheets they fill out for each kid every day that shows what they did and when they went potty. The only bad thing about this is that I have to break the news to my babysitter. I'm not looking forward to that AT ALL. I was going to do it this morning but her son was there. So I'm going to try again tonight. I'm such a chicken. I called my mom last night and said "Will you break up with my babysitter for me?" She said no. When we were touring the daycare, Alivia jumped right in and started playing with some kids. Their front door is kept locked by a keypad and each parent has their own code to get in. Alright well, I still have a few hours to work myself up to telling her....geez.

I have found something that relieves stress and anxiety better than a pedicure, manicure, massage or a facial. I paid someone to clean my house. She came in on saturday and worked for about 5 hours and she did such a great job. Yesterday I kept saying "Look, she wiped this off, Look, she cleaned this out" Rob kept saying "Yea, Aim, that's what you're supposed to do when you clean" I didn't really have a response for that. But it felt so great to have everything all clean and shiny. I got motivated and cleaned the basement and did all of my laundry. I was in such a good mood yesterday and probably will be for several days to come. We'll probably have her come in once a month or maybe every two weeks not sure yet.

I worked at the State fair on saturday. AAA had a booth there and they asked if anyone wanted to work. I had never been and thought it would be fun. NOT A SINGLE PERSON WOULD GO WITH ME...shame on all of you!! It's all good though, I was worried that it would be too hot but it really wasn't that bad at all. We were under a tent in the shade with two fans blowing. I wish I would have gotten to walk around a little more, there was a TON of stuff to do, I would have loved if Alivia was there. Maybe next year. There were alot of "special" people that came to our booth. I thought the whole mullet thing was dead but oh no, they're alive and kickin in sedalia. I saw several, but the best thing I saw all day was a kid that came to our table he had on the standard state fair attire, cowboy hat, cowboy boots, jeans with holes and a tshirt. As he got closer to the booth, the guy that I was working with noticed that there was a belt buckle on the outside of his tshirt. We were confused. When he got up to the table my co-worker said "Can I ask you a question?" The kid came up and said "What?" my co-worker said "I'm just curious how you got your belt buckle on the OUTSIDE of your shirt" The kid kinda laughed as did all of his friends and he said "There was a hole in my shirt and I figured instead of messing with tucking my shirt in I would use the belt buckle to keep my shirt in place"
He had pulled his belt buckle through the hole in his shirt.... wow.

This is gonna be a busy week, I have my bowling meeting for thursday this week, my purse party is friday, i have to work saturday morning, the st charles festival is this weekend and our sunday bowling league starts this week.

There's only so many hours in the day dear....

Last year when Rob was between jobs and trying to work for himself, he worked for a body shop when they needed help. It's a small shop and he only worked there 3 or 4 times. They called yesterday and said that one of the guys got sick and will be out for 6 to 8 weeks. I guess they were asking Rob if he would help them out. So at dinner last night he says "This is going to suck" I said "How will that work?" He said "Well, I'll be working at night too I guess" I said "Well, you don't have to do it, just tell them you can't" He said "They helped me when I needed work and I need to return the favor" I said "There's only so many hours in the day dear" he paused and said "Yea....I know" I respect the fact that he wants to help these people and don't get me wrong the money would be AWESOME but it's not worth him killing himself over. I don't know what he's going to do.....

Ms. Sassy

The other night Alivia was in the bath tub and she likes to stand the whole time but she makes me sit on the floor next to the tub!!

The other night I said "You need to sit down, you're going to bust your butt" and as usual her response was "no" I said "Why?" she said "Why??? ...Cause!!"

I don't know where she gets this stuff from but she cracks me up.

sleeping beauty

I took this picture this morning with my cell phone, she looked so cute, sleeping in her big girl bed!! There isn't really too much going on at our house, we are still working on the bathroom. All of the plumbing is done, Rob is working on getting the rest of the drywall down so he can put up the new walls we bought last week. Alivia continues to crack me up every single day. We ordered pizza last night and Rob was downstairs when it came. I said "go tell daddy that the pizza is here and it's time to eat" She stood at the top of the stairs screaming "DADDY... HUNGRY??!...PIZZA" and each time she said it she got louder and louder. It was hilarious. We took Rob's cavalier to get an inspection because the tags are due. It ended up costing $378. I'm pretty sure the car isn't worth that much. That's all I got

I got the brilliant idea to take the front rail off of alivia's bed over the weekend. I figured she's two, it's time. It's been going really good. The first night she woke up at midnight and was standing in the doorway to our bedroom with her blanket-cute as can be. So we let her in our bed. The second night she came in at 4 and this morning she came in our room at 6. So, by tommorrow we should be good to go!!

Rob was supposed to be on jury duty today (sorry rachel!!) He wasn't really looking forward to it but he did get to sleep in 3 hours today!! He got ready and drove up there, checked in, and they told him it was cancelled!! He was very excited!! He's going to get his work car inspected and all that good stuff today.

So, I'm not too thrilled about it but I'm going to attempt my fruit diet again-just for a month. We're going on a float trip in just about a month so I figured that was a good incentive. I started yesterday and lost two pounds already!! Rob said he would eat fruit with me at night. I was making a huge fruit plate for dinner last night and I was cutting up strawberries and he said "Can we dip those in chocolate?" I said "YOU can" he hesitated and said "Ok I won't....well I'll try"

That's about it for now.......

Birthday Madness....

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Well I officially have a two year old. I can't believe it seems just like yesterday!! Speaking of yesterday. I took off work to spend the day with Alivia for her birthday. We got an early phone call that my cousin and his wife had their baby. They weren't supposed to have him until today (07/17) but she went into labor early and had to have him yesterday. Amber, Ashley and I went to the hospital to visit. As we were getting on the elevator some people got off and I said to Amber "That looks like Anthony" (the son of a friend of hers) She said, "his mom must be here having her baby" When we got up to the maternity floor we got off the elevator and a guy from my work was standing in the waiting room I said "Are you guys having your baby today?" they were. We went and saw my cousin's baby and walked up and down the halls, she wanted to try and find her friend and I wanted to find the guy from my work. I ran into ANOTHER girl I know from the bowling alley that was extremely pregnant!!! It was so weird to see so many people that we knew in the same place. Alivia's party went so well.The weather was great and I think everyone had a really good time.

I'm trying to call around and confirm everything for the big birthday party on sunday. I'm so excited and the weather is supposed to be nice. This birthday party went from "let's have a combined party for jack and alivia's birthday " to "did you call and confirm the k-9 demonstration!!" it's gotten a little out of hand but it's going to be a blast. It's now officially been 7 days since i've had a/c at my house. You just don't realize what a luxury that is until you don't have it for a week!! Hopefully they will get the part they need today and we can get it fixed today or tomorrow. I know the people at the warranty company and the a/c company hate to hear my voice on the other end of the line. I figure, hey, if i'm sweating, i'm gonna make your life miserable too!! I kept anthony and jack all weekend. alivia and jack got along great and played together all weekend. We went to alex and brady's first baseball game too, which they won by the way. Rob and I went to a cooking class at dierbergs with my mom and dad on saturday night it was a good time and great food. Today is my little sister's bday. I can't believe she is 18. I'm pretty sure she should stay 8 forever. we're going to dinner tonight to celebrate. Amber told her she would get her a tattoo for her bday but she could only get it on her foot because amber doesn't want ashley to have a tattoo on her back for amber's wedding. Who cares what ashley's wants, it's only her body, it is all about amber ya know. I thought that was funny and then ashley asked if amber would get one with her and amber told her no!! Alivia is talking so good, I can't believe it, we can actually have mini conversations with her. This morning I was in her room trying to find some clothes to put on her and she was in my bed and she said "Mommy?" I said "What baby?" she said "where are you?" I said "i'm in your room" she said "okay" I really cannot believe she's gonna be two already.

So, I went to a purse party on Friday night. I bought a purse, a wallet and a very cute travel bag. I will be having a party on August 17th at my house. I'm not usually into that kind of stuff but everything was really cute so i'm excited about having my own party. Saturday one of our friends came over and completely re-did all of the bathroom plumbing for both upstairs bathrooms. I'm pretty excited about that. We had the old cast iron plumbing-now it's all updated to PVC. The bathroom is coming along-the sub floor is down so now Rob can start the drywall, that should be interesting! This week is going to be crazy. I'm watching Jack and Anthony this weekend so that should be fun! If I don't blog before then, hope everyone has a safe 4th!

The Day From Hell...

I guess it all started yesterday morning really. We have problems with our air conditioner every year-never fails. We had trouble a few months ago, and then starting yesterday morning it's 80 degrees in my house and the air conditioner is running non stop. THEN, I come home from work last night to find Rob standing in the driveway soaking wet and he looked like he had been running and he was talkin to someone frantically on his cell phone. I slowly opened my car door to hear " I was working in the bathroom and a board dropped on the water line and there's water everywhere how do I make it stop?" I got alivia out of the car and went into the house to hear the waterfall going on in my basement. I showed Rob where to turn the water off (I guess in the panic he just blanked) The ceiling in the basement was dripping everywhere and there was about 3 inches of water on the floor, the bathroom floor upstairs was soaked and had gotten about 3 feet of the carpet in my bedroom wet. We sucked all the water off the carpet and started the fans. I really wasn't freaking out too bad and the only reason was because we had actually taken everything out of the basement to clean it out and we were going to put it all back sometime this weekend so nothing got week except an entertainment center, that might be the only thing that gets ruined. I just kept saying "It could have been SO MUCH WORSE!!"
Then we went to home depot to get the part that Rob needed to block the pipe off so we could turn the water back on...they didn't have it. We had to meet my dad over at my sister's house to pick up the tables from the garage sale and return those to Jenny's brother. On the way to his house it started to rain. Then we went to the Home depot in O'Fallon and we found the part we needed. We figured we better stop and get something to eat before we went home because it was getting late. We went to the Bread Co and when we came out my car wouldn't start!!! Luckily it was right across the street from Amber's work so we ran over and took her car, went home, got the jump box and came back to my car. It started right up and we didn't get home till about 9:30. So I guess we need to figure out what the hell is going on with our A/C. I wish our warranty company would just replace it but I guess they figure if they can keep us going for 3 months at a time why bother! I'm crossing my fingers that there are no more tragedies today!

The wishing well....or maybe not

Since our bathroom in our bedroom is all torn out we have to take showers in the hall bathroom. When I am getting ready for work in the morning, Alivia usually lays in my bed and watches channel 9 and drinks her milk. Today she came into the bathroom while I was in the shower and she had a hand full of change. Rob leaves his change laying around everywhere. We had to turn on her humidifier last night because she is getting a little bit of a cough, I hadn't turned it off yet. I got out of the shower and she went into her room with all of her change. The next thing I heard change being dropped into water. I walked into her room and she had taken the lid off of her humidifer and was throwing the coins into it. One thing I can say is that she did turn the humidifier off before she turned it into a wishing well. She is so freakin smart it's scary. She talkes in 3 and 4 word sentences now, it's so cute. She also tells on people, "Mommy, Amber bite me" and points to the place where she was bitten. It's pretty funny. Last night she was trying to get a piece of mail out of the trash, I told her no and she kept trying to get it so rob told her no and she still didn't stop so rob slapped her hand (not very hard of course) she comes running into the living room where I was and then she got up and went back into the kitchen and said "no hit daddy" and pointed her finger at him!!

GARAGE SALE UPDATE
Amber's neighborhood is having a neighborhood garage sale this weekend so we left our stuff set up and will be at it again this saturday.

Garage Sale

If anyone is interested, Amber and I are having a garage sale at her house tomorrow from 6 Am to whenever. She lives off of Queensboro in St. Peters, We have signs up. We have a ton of decorations, clothes and lots of other miscellaneous items.

This week has been crazy trying to get everything set up. This week of the year is always crazy anyway. Between June 12th and June 20th, we have my mom's bday, my dad's bday, rob's dads bday, and fathers day for my dad, rob's dad and rob's stepdad. It's always a very expensive, very busy week! We're almost through it though!!

We're BBBBACCKKK!!

Texas was great....Once we got there. Monday night our flight was supposed to leave at 5:05 pm. We got to the airport and went to the gate about 4:00 and the flight had been cancelled. So they directed us to another gate to get rebooked. There was a 6:20 flight and they put us on that one. No big deal, we went and had some dinner. We went back to the gate to wait. We started hearing people say that the 6:20 flight was being pushed back to 7:50. They hadn't made an announcement so I didn't get too worried. Then they made an announcement. We were starting to get a little antsy and Alivia was getting bored. We finally got on the plane at 7:50. We pushed back from the gate and then the plane stopped and they said that the weather in Dallas was still bad and we would need to wait until 8:45 to take off. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? A one year old on a plane sitting still for 45 minutes...great. She didn't do too bad and then we finally took off and landed in Dallas at 10:05. We were taxing down the runway and the plane stopped, they said there was another plane in our gate and it would be about 10 minutes, everone on the plane just chuckled, it was just humorous at this point. 10 minutes turned into an hour and 15 minutes, we didn't get off the plane until 11:20!!! That was the longest hour and a half flight of my life. We finally went to get our bags and then off to get our rental car--we had to take a shuttle for 10 minutes to get to our rental car and they closed at 12:00. We got there at 12:05-thank god there were still there. The trip only got better from here (it couldn't get worse..right?!?!) Our rental car was a PT cruiser convertible!! We finally got to the hotel at about 1 am. Which by the way was a one room suite with a kitchen!! Rob had to get up early to go to his class. Alivia and I slept in and then we went to the zoo. The zoo in Fort Worth was great. Most of the animals were out and about. It seems like you don't really get to see that many animals at the St. Louis Zoo. Anyway, we had a great time. We went back and took a nap and waited for rob to get done with his class. Then we all went to a really nice dinner and went to a mall. On Wednesday, Alivia and I went to the Ft. Worth Botanical garden and the Japanese Garden. It was a really nice day and Alivia got to feed the fish in the Koi pond which she loved. We went back took and nap and waited for rob. We went to dinner and an amusement park thing-we did put put and batting cages and played games in a huge arcade. Yesterday Alivia and I went to see Shrek the Third. She sat through about an hour and 10 minutes and was over it so we left and went to pick up rob. He got done early yesterday and we decided to go to the airport and see if we could get an earlier flight. We weren't supposed to leave until 7:20 last night. We were able to get on a 5:20 flight. Rob said that he might have classes coming up in Chicago and Atlanta..I said "Cool....that was an invitation right?"

brush of bad luck....

Yesterday at work, the operating system that I do everything through wasn't working right, it was going very slow and then would go down completely. So by 3:00 I had enough and called it a day. I was excited to go home though because I had gone earlier in the day to trade my cable box for the new DVR box. I've been wanting DVR forever. So I thought, ok well I'll just go home and get that all set up. When I got home I started to try to figure it out and wasn't having much luck. The only thing I had was..the box...a cable with 5 plugs on each end...and the remote. That's it...no book...nothing. So Here I am standing behind the big screen with plugs coming out of everywhere. So I got the cordless phone and called charter. When I finally got through to the right people they put me on hold...then my cordless phone died. And of course this whole time, Alivia is trying to come behind the tv too and then she wanted some milk and she's yelling my name the whole time i'm trying to do this. So I figured I would just wait till Rob got home and he could mess with it. Then I started to open the mail and saw a credit card bill, I called them up and here was the conversation after 10 minutes on hold (again, alivia calling my name and telling me to hold her babies and whatever else)

me: Hi, I just got a bill for a credit card that I cancelled
mean credit card lady: Yes I see you cancelled your account was paid off on april 27th and cancelled on May 1st.
me: Yes and I received a refund check for the overpayment.
her: Yes, How can I help you
me: Well I paid this off, received a refund check, cancelled the account and I just got a bill for $11
her: Yes, you actually shouldn't have received that check, that was a mistake, your balance is $11
me: Well, since I just paid you guys $5700 do you think you could waive the $11 since the account is cancelled
her: no, ma'am I'm not able to do that at this time
me: Can I speak to a supervisor
her: I'm an account manager.....
me: So I just paid this off and got a refund check and you can't waive the $11
her: you only paid back money you borrowed from us ma'am
me: I just think you should waive this since I received a refund check and cancelled it. It's $11
her: Yes, Ma'am it's $11

I wanted to cuss her out but I just couldn't do it. I wish Amber would have been at my house I would have handed her the phone and let her handle it!!! So then, we leave the house because yesterday was Bryan's birthday and we went out to eat. On the way there, we passed a car on the side of the road with a flat tire, Rob told me to stop because he wanted to help them. We stopped the car and when Rob got out of the car, his cell phone dropped into a sewer that was on the side of the road!!! He went to help the people and got back into the car and started rubbing his head and cussing about dropping his phone into the sewer and looked down and he had black stuff (from the tire) all over his hands and had wiped it all over his face and head.

him: Where are some baby wipes at?
me:....................I don't have any....
him: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?

We managed to find ONE kleenex for him to clean off with. He was so devestated all through dinner about his phone. He just kept saying "I can't believe I lost my phone, I can't believe I lost all my numbers"

We had a nice dinner and went to the mall afterwards to get a new SIM card so I think everything is going better today. Hopefully......

privacy anyone...

As everyone knows once you have a child, you have no privacy-there's no such thing. My daughter has had quite the imagination lately. She is playing with babies and I bought her a stroller to push them around in, she feeds them and wraps them in blankets, it's the cutest thing. She reminds me alot of myself when I was a kid, she is very motherly and VERY bossy. She made me lay down on the floor of her room last night on a blanket and on a pillow and read books to her. I would start to read a book and she would lay down next to me and after she was over the book I was reading she would get up, rip it out of my hands, put it back on the shelf and hand me a new one, this went on for quite awhile--until american idol came on. I got up and told her I was going into the living room to watch tv and she started patting the blanket and SCREAMING "LAY DOWN MOMMY, LAY DOWN!!" I moved the blanket and pillow into the living room and she was ok with it. She makes me hug her babies and hold them and feed them. As you know, we are re-doing our bathroom in our bedroom. We have been using the bathroom in the hallway to take showers, I leave the bathroom door open while I'm in the shower so she can sit in there and play or whatever she wants to do. Most mornings, she will sit on the toilet and play with the brushes that are on the back of the tank. This morning she set this up while I was in the shower:





















She laid a blanket over the toilet, brought the stroller into the bathroom, and was sitting on the toilet feeding her baby-she cracks me up. This bathroom is pretty small anyway and was pretty hard to get out of the shower with all of this going on-it was too cute though.

Texas here I come

Rob has been telling me for a few weeks that his work was going to send him to Texas for some kind of training class. The other night I got to thinking....they are paying for his flight and his room. Maybe I can get a semi-paid for vacation out of this. So I mentioned it to him and then we figured out that we wouldn't have to pay for a plane ticket for Alivia because she's under two. So we decided that we would all go and make a vacation out of it!! I'm so excited, my plane ticket was under $200 and the rental car was about $150, there is no charge for Alivia to fly, the flight is under two hours....this just keeps getting better and better. Her and I will get to hang out and do things during the day and then we can do family stuff at night. I'm really excited. We'll be gone 3 nights. I did a search of things to do in Ft. Worth and apparantly story telling is a big thing in that city. I think we will do that one day, and they have a zoo of course so we will probably check that out. I can't wait!!!!

Just another Weekend at the White House...

Rob and I had such a nice weekend. Friday we went to Amber and Bryan's for a BBQ, Saturday morning my mom and my Aunt graduated from SCCCC, after the ceremony we went to Wilikers for lunch. Rob and I went shopping Saturday night, we were out of almost everything so that was a very expensive trip, but fun. Sunday we went to breakfast with my mom and dad, then to dinner at his mom's. When we got home we decided to rip out the bathroom!!! Heck, why not. Our bathroom was old when we moved in our house 5 years ago. Here are some before and after. I was a little nervous when he started ripping everything out because I just wasn't ready, but i'm pretty excited now. It only took two hours to rip everything out. We are going to replace the drywall too because it's in pretty bad shape.

just plain scary.....

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The picture on the top is AMBER!!!! The picture on the bottom is ALIVIA!!!!

The artist at work...

some many things going on....

Rob and I went to springfield last weekend and had a REALLY nice time. Amber and Bryan got all moved into their new house, it's really cute and they love it. I'm still finding their stuff all over the place though!! I'm making a big pile in the basement for them. So now our basement is completely empty and we're trying to figure out what we want to do with it. I would really love to get new carpet but who knows. I just got off the phone with my sister in law marsha, she had her baby this morning at 8, his name is aidan wyatt, he weighs 7'2 and is 20 inches long. She is down in Perryville so I think I will go see her this weekend. That was the last of the baby epidemic, noone else is pregnant-for now!! Work has been really busy which is really good for me!! Rob decided that he wanted to start working out so we went jogging last night. I'm a little sore today. We have people coming over tomorrow to look at our air conditioner. I swear, we can never just turn on the air or the heat, it's always something. Thank god we have a home warranty so we don't have to pay that much out of our pocket but still, It's been 90 degrees outside the last few days and it's about 80 in my house. I'm hoping the just replace the whole stupid thing, i'm tired of dealing with it!! Rachel and I are going to a trivia night saturday at her "church" we need more people so if you're interested please let me know asap!!!

So, the mechanical condition of my escalade has been going down hill for about a year. It has needed a new water pump and theres a great built in feature that I'm sure no other escalade came with-when you're at a stop and take off, it sounds like the horn honks!! So, last week Rob told me that he was going to take the escalade in to get a new water pump and it would cost about $400-I told him to go ahead and do it because we still owe on it and plan on keeping it for awhile so we need to take care of it (not his specialty!!) So we dropped it off sunday night. Monday he called me and asked me if I wanted them to fix the rear axle too (that's what was making the horn honking noise when you take off) I said YES!!! Just let them look over it and fix whatever they need to. He told me it would be about $1300. I said that's fine. On tuesday, he called me and said they found some other stuff wrong and it would be about $1600. Again, I said that's fine, just do it. This is a friend of Rob's that he bowls with so I figured he wasn't messing with us and he would do a good job. We went and picked it up last night and the total was $2000. It's kinda funny how it went from $400 to $2000 in less than 5 days!!! They printed out everything that they did to it and it was 2 pages long!!! It needed it bad and I was feeling ok about the price. That is until I looked at the labor price and the parts price. The labor price was $1400 and the parts were $600. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!! I figured that if they worked on it for 40 hours straight (which i'm sure they didn't) that's $37 an hour!!!! WOW!!! I'm in the wrong business!!!

Anyhow, it's running like a champ and we're taking it to springfield this weekend so we'll see if it was worth it!!

Last year before I made the decision to become an insurance agent, I thought maybe I should check into getting my life and health license-just because-maybe it would make me look good!! So last July I took the 2 day long course that cost $215. It was horribly boring. I studied real hard for a few days and then stopped. Then I decided to become an agent, With this you have to pass your test no more than 6 months from the day you start. I took the 2 day class again and February, studied for a few days and then stopped. I couldn't bring myself to even look at it, I didn't have any interest in the concept. So then it became April.... I started getting a little nervous (I had to have my license by May 1st!!!) I considered taking the class again and figured I really didn't want to put myself through that again!!! When I was a sales coordinator I saw EVERY SINGLE PERSON I TRAINED fail the life and health test over and over again, These were people with college degrees. I passed my property and casualty test the first time back in 1998 but I was still so freakin scared to take this stupid test!!! My manager has been trying to nicely remind me that I REALLY NEEDED TO TAKE CARE OF THIS!!! So last week I got online and scheduled the test. I didn't tell anyone about it because I didn't want to fail and have to answer to everyone!! So I went and took the test this morning and I PASSED!!! I am very excited and so relieved that I don't have to think about this anymore, I called my mom and told her and she said "Why were you worried you've never failed a test" I guess I haven't but I didn't want to walk in there and just assume I would pass. I'm very proud of myself and I think I might tell Rob he should take me out to dinner for it!!

We had a very busy weekend. Friday I left work a little early and Amber and I went to Blanchette Park and McNair Park to check them out as far as a place for her to get married. She really liked Blanchette park. We were walking through the garden at and Amber said "I hate bugs" I started looking around and I didn't see anything so I said "Where do you see a bug?" She said "What do you mean? Can't you hear it buzzing in my ear" Anyway, she loved the garden and it's a definite possibility. Saturday morning I had to work at the diner, as soon as I got home Amber wanted me to go running around with her, she then decided that we were going to have a BBQ and invite some people over. I was exhausted by the end of the night. I didn't do too much on Sunday, Amber was working and Rob was bowling, me and bryan talked about doing something all day but we never actually did, I had to bowl Sunday night. Yesterday I took the day off and Alivia and I went to the zoo with Jenny, Jack, Amber and Brayden. It was a perfect day for it. The weather was gorgeous and there was a light breeze. We had a really good time, I had to buy a disposable camera for $15 so I will post pictures as soon as I develop them. When we first got there of course we were all hungry so we sat outside and ate, some ducks came up to our table so the kids were feeding them, it was pretty funny, Amber said "Do you think ducks would eat chicken if i gave it to them?" I think she just gave them fries and she said to the ducks "Are you allowed to have ketchup?" She's retarded. Then we went over to the sea lions, Alivia went crazy-she LOVED them. They were pretty active and we got to see them eat, she kept saying "I SEE 'EM, I SEE 'EM, MOMMY, I SEE 'EM!!!!) Every time I go to the zoo it's too hot and all the animals are hiding in the shade but they were out and about yesterday, it was so nice. Rob and I are going to Springfield, Mo this weekend, he is bowling there. I love going to Springfield, they have alot of malls and really good restaurants. That's all I got for now...

Thoughts.....

THANK GOD SANJAYA FINALLY GOT BOOTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited. I really was starting to feel bad for him. I got on Howard Stern's website yesterday so see if what I had heard about him rallying to keep Sanjaya was true and it was. He was campaigning to keep Sanjaya on American Idol because he sucked. It's sad that he has that much influence over people. I'm glad that america finally got it right!!

I was watching the news last night and they did a dedication to all of the people that lost their lives in Virgina this week. They showed pictures of the victims and I happened to notice that there was no rhyme or reason the the type of people that were killed, there were women, men, students, teachers, caucasions, african americans, asians, a german teacher, a russian teacher and a french teacher. I just thought that was strange.

I don't really have much else going on, I've been sick for the last two weeks and finally starting to feel better. Things have been a little slow at work but I think they're picking up. I'm writing a HUGE house next week so that makes me happy!!!