Kids rooms

Yes, I'm aware we've lived here for over two months, and I still haven't posted pictures. Oops. In my defense, I did move and I'm still not totally unpacked. I did however find the camera cord today(now if I could just find the rest of the silverware) so here are a few pics of the kids rooms. Poor Ant got the smallest room in the house, but I wanted his room next to Amelia's, so thats what he's got. Besides, the office/spare room/ sewing scrapbooking room needs to be large to hold all of our junk. There are no curtains in Ant's room because I haven't figure out what I want in there yet. Amelia picked the fabric for her valance herself, which is why it's pink. (Cause the pepto bismal color on the walls isn't enough pink. LOL) So yeah, I'll stop rambling now, here are the pictures. :-) Click to enlarge.

No one's home.

The downside to my new home purchase and moving is the new phone number and the new telemarketers. Half the people who call me don't speak English, which I find entertaining. It's much easier to harass a telemarketer when you don't speak the same language. I've stopped answering the phone for unknown numbers, they are all usually someone trying to sell me something, (especially security systems!) or wanting to sign me up for some cause or get my donation. The best one that I've seen on the caller ID was the Oakland motorcycle accident lawyer. That's actually what showed up on my caller ID. Well really it was a much shorter condensed version, but I'm guessing that's what they meant. Either way, I got a good laugh out of it.

Still unpacking!

Is it sad that I'm still unpacking? We've lived here for three months. I sort of thought we'd be all done by now. Oh well, we'll get there eventually. We're about to pack up the whole kitchen back up again. I'm not looking forward to that. On the plus side, unpacking stuff is like Christmas as far as the kids are concerned. We got out 4 huge boxes of toys from the garage last weekend and they were so excited.

It's funny the random things that are still lost somewhere. I can't find my favorite Dansko shoes. My cousin talked me into buying them the last time I was in Portland, and I love them. But they are still lost in the garage somewhere. Hopefully I'll find them soon.

What did you do today?

Today I

Got up at 530.
Took a shower.
Had a cup of tea.
Made 3 beds.
Prepared breakfast.
Filled up the water and sand table.
Played in the back yard.
Made mud pies with the kids.
Washed dishes.
Unloaded the dishwasher.
Vacuumed the dried mud off the floors.
Spot steam cleaned the carpet.
Bathed the kids.
Baked brownies with Amelia.
Made lunch for myself and the kids.
Washed dishes.
Unpacked two more boxes.
Dug up some more of the ditch we're digging in the back yard.
Signed Amelia up for a ballet class that started today.
Drove all over trying to find the right outfit/shoes for ballet.
Drove across town to the ballet class.
Spent an hour chasing Anthony around the ballet studio.
Explained to the teacher that Amelia does not have three brothers (named Anthony, Jack, and Chance. HA)
Supervised (and kept the kids away from) the guy from the window company while he made some repairs.
Washed, hung up, folded and put away a lot of laundry.
Weeded my flower beds.
Took out the compost. (That stuff stinks! Ewww)
Swept and mopped the kitchen floor.
Glued Anthony's dresser drawer back together(someone remind me why I put an antique dresser in a kid's room?)
Went through all the kids toys, and put them back where they go.
Sorted through half of Amelia's closet.(have to do Anthony's tomorrow)
Did puzzles with the kids.
Tried to convince Anthony not to wear the laundry basket on his head.
Changed 3 poopy diapers and a lot more peepee ones.

It's 730. Ant is in bed, but not sleeping. Jeff and Amelia just ran to get ice cream. I think I'm ready for bed.

What did you do today?

Did ya miss me? Wait. Don't answer that. So anyway, I'm back. Still probably not going to be blogging too much, but I'll try and post here and there. And I promise there will be pictures of the new house soon. :-)

Things are progressing around here. We've got the new windows in. It's a lot quieter and much cooler in here already. The downside to the new windows is our already funky kitchen counters (tile that someone put in themselves) have bigger problems caused by the pass through windows. When the new windows were put in, they had to chip out some of the tile and it ended up cracking the tile all around my sink. So it looks like the kitchen redo is going to front of the list. We're trying to decide now if we're going to do new cabinets or just new counters. I love the size and layout of our kitchen. I can live with the current cabinets, Jeff hates them. I think it's just the stain that he hates though so I'm wondering if we could just refinish or paint them. We'll see. Right now I'm trying to pick out the counter tops. I'm really liking that the solid surface counter tops (think Corian). There are even some green options, one style we like is made with a portion of recycled materials. The ones I like are made by LG, pictures can be seen here. I really like the idea of having the sink integrated so it's all one piece. No seems to keep clean!

If you're reading this and have experienced solid surface counters, please leave me a comment. I'd like to hear about it! It's one thing to research and look at pictures it's another to hear from someone who has it in their house. Anyway. I should probably get to bed, I'm having a nanny party here tomorrow. Woohoo. :-)

Menu Plan Monday

Monday Melt in your Mouth Meat Loaf, Salad, Frozen veggies

Tuesday: Avocado Chicken, Banana Bread, Brown Rice, salad

Wednesday: Pasta, veggies, salad

Thursday, Crockpot stew, Rolls,

Friday: Pizza/leftovers

Saturday: Turkey burgers, red potatoes, fruit

Sunday: Teriyaki Chicken, Salad, Veggies

I'm alive!

Moving is a pain but it's worth it. A large portion of our stuff is unpacked, although the garage still appears to be filled with junk. The kids are settled in their rooms, and sleeping pretty well. No more waking each other up all night. We've had lots of little projects completed already, a new water heater has been installed, the cable and phone lines have been rerun, and a few electrical things have been fixed. We've bought new furniture, repainted almost the whole interior of the house, and ordered all new windows. The windows should be installed in a few weeks, and I think that will make a huge difference with the noise and the heat this summer. Next we'll be working on the yard and then deciding how much to redo in the kitchen. We already have new appliances, but I'm not crazy about the cabinets and counters, so we'll see what happens. We also need to have the electrician back in so we can get ceiling fans put in.

The guest room had it's first visitors this weekend.(Although they had to sleep on air mattresses because we don't have a bed in there yet! Ha.) My brother in law and nephew drove out from Arizona. It was nice to see them, and Amelia had so much fun with Uncle Jim. She was so sad after they left, she told me she wanted them to come back "right now!" :-) We took them to the beach, and they had to go to Sprinkles Cupcakes in Newport Beach to get cupcakes to take back to my niece Sara. I tried one, and while it was good, I'm not sure they were worth the price. Nine cupcakes cost me $27!

Anyway, posts will probably still be few and far between for a while until I get a little more organized around here.

Today's to do list

• Submit Change of address form to USPS
• Change address with all of our accounts (figure them all out later)
• Turn on electric, water, gas
  
• Get garbage service started(This literally took 5 phone calls by me and 3 more by Jeff. Who knew there were so many Garbage companies in Riverside...
• Reserve moving truck
• Hire movers
• Pack the kitchen
• Set up carpet cleaning for next week
• Set up cleaners
• Finish pulling nails and patching holes
• Clean my bathroom
• Clean kids bathroom
• Finish packing kids room (except clothes)
• Finish painting
• Clean kitchen

Shhh, don't tell!

I'm totally hiding out from Jeff and the kids. At 5AM Jeff and I got into a little argument about who was getting up with Anthony.

Yesterday, I got up with the kids and Jeff stayed in bed. He's so nice and sweet when I'm leaving with the kids. The kids and I even went and got donuts at 6 AM, and took the really long way around, and got donuts from a bakery across town, so he could sleep. Then I cleaned and did laundry and watched the kids while he slept.

Fast forward to this morning when he's all irritated that I want him to get up with Anthony today. He did eventually get up with him after he bitched for a bit. Following his exit from the bedroom, they have been back to "visit Mommy" three times. So I gave up. At 715 I finally got out of bed. But I still want some quiet time. And I know that as soon as I go out into the living room, Jeff will run as fast as he can back to bed, not to be moved until noon. So, this is how I find myself at the desk in my room, in my pajamas, reading TMZ and blogging, while hiding from my children. Good times!

Hey Grandma

This morning Amelia and ( and some bears and a stuffed dog) had a tea party on the floor. We took these pics to show Grandma. :-)

The things kids say

The kids and I were sitting at the table, they were eating cereal and I was still waking up, when Jeff left for work this morning. After he made his way out the front door, arms full of his laptop, his lunch and the trash, Amelia looked at me and sighed. She followed that with, "Mama, I'm gonna miss that little fella."

I'm still laughing. I'm going to make a guess that this was the first time anyone has ever called Jeff a little fella. :-)

Amelia bakes a cake!

Caught in the act

Anthony's new favorite spot in the house is in my bathroom sink. He's quite the little monkey and can climb right up the cabinets all on his own. This is how I found him earlier today. He was so engrossed in trying to eat the toothpaste, that he didn't even notice me at first.






Then he finally noticed me and immediately got the uh oh look on his face. He knows he's not supposed to be up there and is generally quite proud of himself when he gets up there without my noticing.









Just ignore the mess on my counters, I was in the middle of cleaning and packing when he made his mad dash for the toothpaste.

Note to self

Hey Self-

When you spend the whole morning sweeping and mopping and vacuuming the whole house, you should not let the kids play out in the sand and water table all afternoon. The floors will not look very good after the kids throw "snowballs" (sand and water formed into balls) into the kitchen from the back patio. And after they track some more sand into the master bedroom and through to their bedroom, the floors will look even worse. Really, you shouldn't bother.

Driveby posting

Overheard in the OC household.

Steph: Amelia, go put your blankie on your bed please.
Amelia: No Mom. I can't. I'm Limboing.

I turn around, and sure enough, Anthony is holding their play broom, and she is trying to do the limbo under the stick. Too bad I didn't have my camera close by.

(We're sloooooooowly moving forward with the home buying process, which is still the reason for my absence. Hoping to have keys next week. Yay!!)

Taking a break

In a few short weeks, we'll officially be homeowners. While I'm very excited, I'm also slightly overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I have to get done. So, I'm going to take a bloggy break. I'll be back with pictures and tales of the move when we're all moved in. I probably won't be visiting blogs much either.

Happy Easter!

My Dad

Today is my Dad's birthday. He would be 56 if he was still alive. He passed away the year after I had Amelia, right around his birthday. Can it really be three years that he's been gone? Every time there is a milestone, a birthday, a Christmas, buying our first house, I miss him. And I'm afraid I'll forget him. My sister got everything of his when he died,so all I have is a few pictures of his.

The other day I was reading a post written by my friend Steph, and she talked about some of her childhood memories of her Mom. I am nowhere near the storyteller she is, but I thought I'd share some of my good memories of my Dad. There are some not so good memories as well, but today is about good things.

My dad was an amazing writer. Some of his poetry was really well written. The subject matter was often full of angst, stories about drug use, wars and his relationship with my mom. But he had a way with words. I wish now that I had more of his writing put away somewhere. I hope my mom still has it all.

Besides having a way with words, he was an excellent guitar player. He taught himself over the years, and could play anything, at least that's how it seemed to me as a child. When I was around 10 or so, my dad and his girlfriend moved into a trailer on the Oregon coast. The lived in the little town of Otis in this rural trailer park. It was in the hills and it was nice. At first they didn't have electricity because they couldn't afford to get the power pole put up for the trailer.( I think it was permits or something they lacked.) So they had kerosene lamps all over the trailer, and a wood stove, and an extension cord run to the neighbors to run the TV and stuff like alarm clocks. They lived that way for months. Every time I smell a wood stove I remember those times. In the evenings Dad and Gail would play guitars and sing songs. He could hear a song and play it back for me.

Another great memory I have is camping. As a teenager, we would go camping every summer. We'd camp at Spruce Run outside Seaside, OR. We usually got rained on. My sister and I would play in the mud swim in the river and sit around the camp fire. There was a huge group that would go, and we'd always have a great time. I truly enjoyed those times with my Dad. Now I wish I'd taken more pictures and appreciated it all more. I'm finally over being Angry at my Dad for leaving us. Now I just miss him.

Tackle it Tuesday

So this is going to be a little different than most Tackle it Tuesdays. I'm sick, Anthony's sick and neither of us got much sleep last night. However, I've got a huge list of stuff to get done. We spent yesterday at the park, and outside a lot so I have to get stuff done today. I'm going to post my list here and check back in every so often as I cross stuff off. I probably won't get it all done, but I can start!

ETA: It's 930 and I'm feeling a lot worse. My head feels like it's about to explode. I can feel myself getting sicker. So I'm off to get as much of my list done as I can before I give in and take some tylenol cold. Wish me luck!

Clean the kitchen

Do laundry

Put laundry away

Change kids sheets

Change my sheets

Deep clean my bedroom

Vacuum living room

Clean bathrooms

Sweep and Mop

Take out Garbages

Ready, set, go!!

Weekend Update

We had a great weekend! Saturday, we wandered around Target in the morning, then we went to a birthday party out in the boonies. (Okay really it was in Upland, by Mt. Baldy.) We managed to get lost on the way there, two freeways meet for a few miles and branch off again, we ended up the wrong one. Oops. We took the 60 all the way to Riverside before we realized we were way far from where we should be. So we back tracked about 20 minutes and were only a half hour late. It was nice to spend so much time outside, even if Jeff and I did get a little sun burnt. The kids had a great time playing in the bouncer and eating cupcakes. We were there all afternoon.

On the way home we stopped at Lowes and spent at least an hour there looking at things we want to get for the new house. Checked out our dream kitchen, ha ha. Not gonna happen anytime soon, but it was fun to look. We came home at 6, I cleaned a little and did some laundry. Then I gave the kids baths and put them to bed. It was a tiring day! :-)

Sunday we went out to Oak Canyon and went for a hike. We've been taking classes there during the week, so Amelia had a good time showing Jeff around. It was really nice, hiking is not something I do much anymore, and I miss it. I need to get a pack for Anthony, there are more trails we could explore if we didn't have the stroller.

After our hike we had lunch at Rubios, mmmm fish Tacos, then went to Trader Joes for grocery shopping. Both kids fell asleep, so now they're sleeping and Jeff is out doing something in the garage. I need to go clean out my car, and take it get vacuumed, then Jeff and Amelia are going to wash it for me after her nap.

Menu Plan Monday

Monday Pasta Meatball Soup Whole Wheat Rolls, Salad

Tuesday Pesto Chicken, brown Rice, Veggies Salad

Wednesday Oven baked Pork Chops, Sweet Potatoes, Salad

Thursday Veggie Quiche,

Friday Stew, Whole wheat rolls, salad

Saturday Breakfast for dinner,

Sunday Salsa Chicken (Recipe below)


Salsa Chicken

1 large Jar of Salsa
2 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 can black beans
1 can corn

Put the Salsa and chicken in the crockpot, and cook on low for 6-8 hours. When it's about finished, shred the chicken, mix in the beans and corn, and it's all done. I sometimes eat it in a whole wheat tortilla with cheese, or just in a bowl. Yummy!

Everything I need to know, I learned on the Wonder Pets...

Overheard in the OC Mama's car the other day.

"Look Mom! There's the statue of Liberty."

I look over and see him standing there. He's dancing around trying to drum up business for the tax place I think.

"Yes, that guy's in a Statue of Liberty costume. Did you learn about her in school?"

"No Mom. She was on The Wonder Pets."

"Of course she was. I don't think you need to go to school anymore, you can just watch the Wonder Pets."

"Can I watch it all day long? But not Anthony. He should take a nap."

Every day?

So Michelle is doing a blog post a day for the next month, and I thought I'd try it too. I'm not sure if I'll make it, but it can't hurt to try.

We're going to see some of our playgroup friends today, Amelia is so excited. With everyone being in school, we haven't been doing much as a group lately.

We're still waiting on house stuff. Inspection was a week ago and still no word on if they'll fix the stuff required for our financing. I'm disappointed in how slowly this process is moving, but maybe it's good for me. I probably needed to learn some patience anyway. :-)

Plugging along

Between Jeff and I, we managed to track down the info on the HOA for the new house. When Jeff called them, he got some interesting info, the house was painted without their permission. And dues haven't been paid yet for this year. Hmm. And the HOA was under the impression that the house was being lived in by the owners. Huh. But none of that should affect us, as they can't transfer the back dues to us, and they are okay with the new color, even if they were not informed.

We are hoping to hear back from the other agent today on our list of stuff that needs to be fixed. And we've been told the gas should be on by Friday so we can have it reinspected. I'm beginning to think I should offer to go sit there while the gas company comes. It may be the only way to finish the inspection before we close! Sheesh.

In other news, I love our agent. She is very patient with me and my OCD about understanding everything. I emailed her a question at 930 last night and she called me back (while she was at Stater Bros ha) immediately and explained it to me. She is always telling us to call any time with questions or concerns, and she has been really helpful with things. When we have had to do paperwork or stuff at the house (inspection etc.) she helped watch the kids so I could take pictures and measurements. So even if this whole process is driving me batty, at least I feel like we have an ally in this.

Sad

Click on the link above to read about baby Stellan. If you're on many mom blogs you've probably heard of this particular blog, or seen the picture, but thought I'd post it anyway. If it was one of my kids I'd be freaking out. I can't imagine what it's like for her.

We're still plugging along in the home buying process. We've had the inspection, but it showed some minor problems and one major one. The big problem is easily fixed, it just requires some $$$, the house needs a new furnace and AC, and we probably won't get financing without it. ( Gotta love VA loans.) We're also waiting for one of the utilities to be turned on still, so I'll have to have the inspector come back for that part, which means I have to pay him again. At least his return fee is not too expensive. It's frustrating when we pushed back the inspection twice, and were assured the utilities would be on, to show up and find the gas still was not on. I think that no one was there when the gas person showed up and so they didn't turn it on.

We also had some problems with the escrow company. They just up and closed down their local office. So one day we're dealing with Stella, the next, the voice mail says to call a different number. And no one there will say where Stella and her whole office have gone to. Finally Jeff asked if he should stop emailing Stella for stuff, and Suzie (new escrow officer) said yes. Her emails will not be answered. On the plus side, even though it was only a day later, they had all of our info and documents in hand and were able to answer questions Jeff had. That's the important part, so we'll go with it for now.

I am really hoping this all gets worked out. Not because I'm super duper attached to this house (it's nice, don't get me wrong, but there are a lot of houses out there) but because I don't want to go through all this krap again.

And it's not cheap either, so far I've paid a $2k deposit, $300 for an inspection, and I'll be billed $450 for the appraisal if this all doesn't go through. Eeep, this could get expensive quick if this house doesn't work out.

I'll update later when we know more.

Wordless Wednesday- Mad face

Seriously?

So I was looking up the school Amelia will attend at the new house, and they start at 740. That seems awfully early to me. Oh well at least my kids are up at thecrack of dawn...

Now what?

So we were getting ready to head out the door to a playgroup this morning (we're in a few) when I get a message that it's canceled. Everyone's dressed, and we're all ready to go, so now we have to find something else today.

Maybe we'll go have lunch with Jeff. Amelia would probably love that.

I actually got a lot accomplished today. I am getting all of our paperwork together for loan stuff, and couldn't find what I needed. So I cleaned out the whole desk. Then I went through Jeff's basket O papers, as well as the huge basket of mail I had inside the front door. I found almost all the stuff I needed, and now our files are all sorted and up to date again. Just have one more w2 to find and we'll have everything! The appraisal has been ordered and inspection is set up. Once we get through that stuff I'll feel like I can chill out a little until it gets closer to the closing.

Could it really happen? could we actually own a home? I'm trying not to get too excited, but I think it's a little late for that. :-)

Of course because I was working on these projects all day, the house is a wreck. The kids had fun playing though and "helping" me sort papers though.

Wordless Wednesday- My Whole World!

ETA: Poor Jeff had been awake for all of about 30 seconds when I took this pic. He's totally being a good sport by not getting pissy that I'm posting this. And seriously, anyone who wonders where my kids get their eyelashes, check out Daddy's lashes. Cause it's not from me!

Tackle it Tuesday

This is a sort of Random Tackle it Tuesday, but thought I'd post it all anyway.

I'm afraid this poor neglected blog may become really neglected in the coming months. We're officially in escrow. I won't believe it's all really happening until we get through the appraisal and inspection. Once those things are done I'll really be busy. I have so much to do in this house. I spent the morning getting the kids' closet organized, and their room all clean. That will make packing it up so much easier. I went through toys, went through their clothes and pulled out a lot of stuff. Right now their room is totally clean and organized, as is the kitchen. The living room and my room, not so much. I've also been doing laundry all day. Everyone has clean beds, but washing all those sheets and the kids blankies (they each have 1o they must sleep with I swear) is a pain in the rear.

As soon as Anthony wakes up, I am going to run some errands. When we get back, I'm going to tackle the living room toys and sweep and mop the wood floors. Good times!

Did you play tackle it Tuesday? Leave me a comment if you did!

Wordless Wednesday- Attitude!

2

These are for Jeff,since he just can't wait. :-)

These are for Jeff,since he just can't wait. :-)

wish me luck

We're making an offer on a house. Making offers and doing financing is a pain in the @$$! So all you people out there, think good thoughts, say a prayer, cross your fingers whatever you do. I've tried not to be emotional about buying a house. I didn't walk in to the first place and fall in love. Really, we've been looking for about 5 years. Ever since we moved here. We're in a good place financially, we've got our stuff preapproved, we've researched neighborhoods and commute times. We know the school details, and the crime rates. Home ownership ain't happening in the city we live in, so we've decided to move further out. It will add about 20 minutes to Jeff's morning commute, and longer to his night time commute. But we really need another bedroom.

The kids are currently sharing a room, and it's driving me crazy. They wake each other up all night. No one is getting any sleep. The house we're offering on is 4 bedrooms, and a bajillion times bigger than the apartment we're in now. So yeah. Cross your fingers and toes, say a prayer, and think good thoughts. We need all the help we can get. :-)

Questions with Amelia.

I stole this from Jenn, 20 questions with Amelia.

1. What is something mom always says to you? "No."

2. What makes mom happy? - "Kisses from me."

3. What makes mom sad? "I don't know. Tell me. I'm asking you."

4. How does your mom make you laugh? "By jokes and tickling me."

5. What was your mom like as a child? - "I don't know."

6. How old is your mom? - "15 minutes."

7. How tall is your mom? "a little tall. Not a lot tall like Momdy." (She calls Jeff Momdy sometimes. i don't know why.)

8. What is her favorite thing to do? "Skip."

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? "Come and find me."

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? "Um, I don't know. Tell me Mommy."

11. What is your mom really good at? computers.

12. What is your mom not very good at? Games.

13. What does your mom do for her job? "Changes Anthony's diaper."

14. What is your mom's favorite food? - "I don't know. I can't like you asking me stuff. "

15. What makes you proud of your mom? "I like when you give me kisses."

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? "a buttefly"

17. What do you and your mom do together? "Clean up time."

18. How are you and your mom the same? "Hair. But your eyes are blue. That's why they are not brown like Daddy's and Anthony's and mine. Sorry."

19. How are you and your mom different? - "We're different than Daddy and Anthony. Daddy and Anthony are boys."

20. How do you know your mom loves you? - "Because I love you to."
21. What does your mom like most about your dad? - "The wedding."
22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? - "the mountains. To see Grandma."

Disneyland

So, Amelia and I went to disneyland this morning. Well, actually it was California Adventure. We had a good time. Jeff and Anthony stayed home, so we got to do stuff that I normally wouldn't do because of Anthony. We waited in line for half an hour to see the Aladdin show at the Hyperion theater. It's really a well done show, it's about 45 minutes long and I think the actors and actresses are pretty good. I haven't seen it since Amelia was a baby and while not much has changed it was still fun to watch. Amelia was a little scared at first, it was pretty loud, and the part with the cave scared her, but after that it was good. We came home and she told Jeff, I got to see an elephant. Besides Aladdin, we got to see Handy Manny, Goofy, and go on a few other rides. We had lunch, then headed back home. Now I'm working on cleaning up the house and doing laundry. I am always doing laundry!

One good part of disneyland is all the walking. I got 7000 steps on pedometer by 1 PM today. Don't need fitness equipment when you can walk all over the place!

Cara cara

So we tried out a new (to us) type of orange this week. Amelia and Jeff love them, but they are not for me. It's called a Cara cara orange. Jeff went on and on about how sweet they were. I tried one and although they are sweet, they had a weird sourness to them that I did not like at all. Jeff found this description which explains it all.

Cara Cara oranges, a type of navel grown in California's San Joaquin Valley, are available December through April. Their outward appearance is similar to other navels, but their interior is a distinctive pinkish red and has an exceptionally sweet flavor with a tangy cranberry-like zing. Cara Caras are a rich source of Vitamins A and C, fiber and Lycopene. A perfect snack served as wedges, they're also a colorful addition to beverages or squeezed into a vinaigrette salad dressing.

I guess it's the cranberry like zing that I didn't appreciate. Oh well at least the kids like them.

Shhh

So I'm going to let you all in on a little secret, in hopes that you've got some advice for me. Here goes, I hate traveling with my kids. Now, I don't mind the car ride. (I refuse to fly with my kids ever again after the time Amelia bolted through security while she and I were being strip searched. Seriously. Don't ask.) I don't mind the eating out, or the sleeping in the hotel beds. I like getting to go out to new places, and doing things in new cities. What I hate is getting my kids to sleep in a foreign place. My kids sleep pretty well at home. They have their routines, and their comfy beds with their own babies and bears and pillows and blankies. And they sleep pretty well there. However, when you take them out of their room, they don't sleep so well. And because of that neither do the rest of us. We went to Tucson for Thanksgiving and while it was nice to see everyone, sleepwise it was horrible. None of us got any sleep. Anthony will not sleep in a room occupied by Jeff and me. The only naps he took were in the car. He was up and down all night long, his routines were off and it was awful. It took us all days to get back to our normal routine when we got home.

So now Jeff wants to go to visit some family. I totally understand his reasoning, he hasn't seen these family members in a long time, and they've never met our kids. I think it will be great to see everyone, but as soon as he mentioned it, I got a knot in my stomach about the sleep problems. when Amelia was this age, we really didn't travel. And when we had to, we stayed in a residence inn, they have suites that have a separate bedroom. Works well for us, the kid can go to sleep in one room, while we all stay in the other room until the kid is asleep. So I just checked it out, and it's soo expensive. With the discounts it's still going to be $250 a night. I think Jeff wants to go from Sunday through Friday. There is no way in heck we can afford that, we've been working really hard to pay off the credit card and van and get some money in our savings, I don't want to put thousands on the credit card again. If we went that route it would be 1250 for the hotel. Then you figure in gas, and food for a family of 4 eating out for 6 days and the cost goes up pretty quickly.

I'm really not sure how to deal with this. So internet help me out here. Got any advice? how do you travel with your kids. Am I the only one with children who refuse to sleep in the same room as me? They see me and think it's play time. Amelia was 3 or so before we could sleep in the same room as her.

I do the trip to see my family in Oregon once a year, but that only costs me the gas to get there, my mom has two extra bedrooms for us, and her house is free and she even feeds us. LOL And even that is pretty stressful.

And random question, what the heck is a POS system? I got three spam messages this morning about that. No clue what it is.

I don't like it.

My new layout that is. But I don't have time to fix it now, so I'll be back later with something else. So until then, enjoy the ugliness. LMAO

It's fixed!

Thank goodness we have two cars again. Jeff wanted to rent a car when his went in the shop on Wednesday, and I said no, we can share, the kids are sick, we can't go anywhere (no school or gymnastics this week for my little sicky:( )so just take my van. By tonight I was ready to scream. If I'd had my car today, I would have put the kids in it and driven around the block. I park in the garage, so it's not like they would have been exposed to the elements. LOL I don't know how I survived after Jeff's truck got hit and it was in the shop for a month. Maybe my sanity wasn't so fragile back when I only had one kid??

But anyway, the car is now fixed, no more blowing fuses and dying. It has new tires, a new valve cover something or other and a new sensor thing. All for the low low price of $800. It could have been much worse though so I'm not complaining.

So tomorrow is my anniversary. I had some stuff planned but it sounds like Jeff's not up for it. I'm a little bummed about that. Yes we're all sick, but we can still do some family stuff. I don't know how Jeff keeps getting so sick. Maybe we need to put up an aluminum fence installation around his cube to keep the sick people at bay? Amelia and I were making breakfast tomorrow, then we were going to go to HB and walk on the pier or walk around shops as long as it's not raining. ( I love the beach in the winter.) Then to the beef palace for some meat for dinner. Yes my husband is obsessed with this old fashioned butcher shop in HB. So since that plan is out now, I guess we'll probably just hang out at home tomorrow. Maybe I'll take the kids to the park if it's not raining.

When it rains it pours...

In the last few days...
Everyone in the house got really sick. Like 104 degree fever sick. Anthony hasn't slept more than 2 hours at a time. The pipe under my kitchen sink broke. We had a waterfall under the kitchen sink. The Honda shut off in the middle of the freeway. After we got it towed and I got Jeff delivered to work this morning we got the news. Its electrical. If we're lucky, its a $400 sensor. If not, it will be thousands. Oh and by the way, the valve cover seal needs to be replaced, and it needs a tune up, and new tires and to be smogged. I am thankful that Jeff's friend is a mechanic, so we can take it to someone we trust, (and his brother is also a mechanic, so we run stuff by him too.) He's going to address the electrical stuff first, because Jeff thinks if it's not the cheap fix, it may not be worth fixing it. Today is Amelia's Valentine's party at school but she's still got a fever so she doesn't get to go. So we're going to mail some valentine's day cards to some of her friends and her cousins, she's pretty sad that she made up all her cards and doesn't get to take them to school. I have decided that Jeff should start bathing in hand sanitizer and wearing a mask at work, since they seem to keep passing illnesses around his office.

But hey, at least we have a roof over our heads, and food in the fridge and Jeff has a job. A lot of people are worse off. I'm just a little overwhelmed today. I'm off to get the house cleaned up again, it's never in good shape after we've all been sick, and the kitchen sink being out of commission didn't help either.