OMG!!

Where has the time gone? Where has my blogging gone? Life apparently got in the way of my blogging experience. So, am I gonna make promises that I'll be better? No. Because as you all know life happens AND we're cruising into the holiday season. Am I gonna do my VERY best to keep up with my blogging even with everything going on? Yes. I am because my children have told me I'm being slack, I have a lot of stuff going on that I can blog about AND it's the holiday season and who doesn't have things to say about holidays? So stick with me, I'm trying.....really....and I'll do my best to keep up. I may even talk about things that have happened in the past few months that I haven't blogged about. But until then here is a list of all the fun, exciting wonderful and wacky stuff you may have missed.
- The girls loved their "Camp Grandy and Grammy" trip to New York City
- I was an assistant coach for Hayden's cheer squad
- I've officially changed my schedule so I'm only working 3 days a week. Of course that is a 16 hour day, a 12 hour day and a 6 hour day; but it is still only 3 days a week.
- Hayden made the all state honors chorus
- Hayden made the million word reading level
- I read and finished all the Harry Potter books
- Hayden started reading the Harry Potter books, has fallen in love with them and has now seen all the movies
- Belle is finishing the Percy Jackson series but has fallen in love with the Harry Potter movies herself.
- Andy is refusing to see the Harry Potter movies until he reads the books (insert raucous laughter here)
- We placed a bid on a house and didn't get it....for the second time.
- I've lost almost 50 pounds!! Can I get a Woot woot?!?!?!
- Mean people make comments on FB that make me re-realize that mean people suck.
- My college football team is rocking this year and there is a whole lot of controversy and what-not, including people making my children cry about it (WTH?!?!?). WAR EAGLE!!!

I think that is everything that leads us to this point. I want to try to keep up better. I NEED to keep up better. I'm GOING to keep up better....I hope. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I know we did. I am so thankful for my husband, my girls, my family and my friends. In general I am thankful for my life; as wacky and wild as it is, it is indeed wonderful and I am blessed.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!

So the last time the hub and I went on a vacay sans kids was, well before we had kids. Yes folks that's right 10 years ago was our last adult vacay.

Enter the hub's yearly conference....in Vegas.

After setting the kids up with the Double G's for the weekend, I scheduled my flight out to meet the hub in Vegas!!! And tomorrow is the day!! I've never been to Vegas and I'm not really one to gamble but the chance to have 3 whole days to ourselves is too good to pass up!!

As for the kids. Well I'm not too worried about them. The Double G's, better known as Grammy and Grandy have this amazing weekend planned for the girls: The Double G Magical Mystery Camp. They haven't told the girls a thing about what they're doing. They've given them clues as to what to pack and clues as to what they might be doing. The girls are over the moon excited so this weekend is definitely a win-win for everyone!

So Viva Las Vegas!! And Viva DGMMC!!

A couple of things

These two things are soooo totally unrelated but here goes!

First of all I just finished the Harry Potter series. I never quite understood all the hype....I do now! Great writing, great stories. They pull you in! I couldn't put them down and was actually sad when they ended. How sad is it that the past two series of books that I've thoroughly enjoyed (HP and the Percy Jackson series) were read because I wanted to read them "with" Hayden? How much sadder is it that she hasn't read them yet and I want her to read them so that I (I mean WE) can see the movies?

Second, I have to say that A/C is one of the greatest inventions known to man. I really don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this. I don't think you fully appreciate it until YOUR SYSTEM DIES!! That's right; just about this same time last year we replaced the one on the main floor and now....well now it is about 90 degrees upstairs and the A/C guy is on his way here (2nd one for the day) to give us an estimate to REPLACE it! Arrrrggggghhhh!! Needless to say since it is about the average temp of the surface of the sun upstairs the girls can't sleep up there. Where are they sleeping you ask? In MY king size bed. And where are the hub and I sleeping you ask? In the QUEEN size bed in the basement! Double Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!

Dear Lord, please let the Coolray guy fix the A/C ASAP so I can sleep in my own bed before I have to kick the hub to the floor cause he hogs the bed. Amen. ;-)

School's out for summer......

WHOO HOO!!! Things are now finally starting to slow down. Thank goodness!!! The girls are complaining that they are bored (already; after only 2 days) but I can't help but want to relax for a little bit!! So here's a quick run down of what's been happening the past month:
-I celebrated my 9th Mother's Day

-Andy and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary; including dinner out by ourselves.
-We found a new baby sitter who our girls absolutely LOVE! This has been a wonderful find and she is such a great kid which makes it even better! This may not sound like a big deal to you BUT considering she is only the 2nd person besides family or close friends to watch the girls it's a HUGE deal to us!!

-I celebrated my 40th birthday with a surprise bday lunch with the girls,dinner with my parents, Andy and the girls and a surprise bday party with a bunch of my friends.

What a great way to celebrate turning 40!!

-After 4 years of being the PTO President I turned over the PTO Presidency to the incoming President. I'm not going to lie it was hard and sad but it's getting better.

-We had 2 field days, a 4th grade talent show, an Arts and Tech night, a piano recital and cheerleading fitting day.

-Hayden was on the All A Honor Roll and also received the 4th grade Technology Award. Whoo hoo!! She is now officially a 5th grader. Her class put on their end of year play for the parents. You can read about it on her blog, Hayden's Highly Hilarious Hijinks.

-Isabelle was on the All A Honor Roll and is now an official 2nd grader. This means that for 1 brief year (until the 1 year it will again happen in high school) my 2 girls will be in the same school. This should be interesting!

-In addition I've been walking/running lots of miles, have tried Zoomba (loved it!) and a couple other workout classes AND I've lost a total of 25.6 pounds!!

Now it's time to do all the things that I haven't had time to do for the past month and fun, fun, fun. There will be some cleaning and purging but for the most part I want to be on the dock, in the sun playing with the girls. I want friends to come play. I want to go on some trips.
So bring on the summer!! Cause I'm soooo ready!! Happy Summer everybody! I hope you have a great one!!

And the verdict is....

I tried Pilates this morning. The balance queen I am not. I'm not even the balance princess. More like the balance jester! There were only 2 major falls off the ball. I'm talking fall totally off the ball and have the ball roll across the room. Minor falls there were more of. A.lot.more. Other than that it was good. I feel like it could definitely strengthen my core, make me stronger and more balanced.....with some time.

The only thing about it was that I felt like I needed to do an aerobic exercise as well; something to get my heart rate up. Soooooo after an hour of Pilates I did a 2.2 mile walk.

Heart rate up: check. Aerobic activity: check.

Feeling it all over after both activities: priceless.

This should be interesting....

I'm going to be trying Pilates in the morning.

I was told to bring one of those giant balls to balance on.

Yeah, this should be really interesting!

SU-Weet

Hot diggity; dog diggity!!

21 total pounds down!!

4 pant sizes down!!

Back up to 5.5 miles (walking at this point but can running again be far behind?!?!)!!

Those are definitely numbers I can deal with!!!

Can I get a woot woot!!

So sad

Today two of my friends lost their fathers.

I can't imagine the depth of their pain and grief.

Please remember that each day with your loved ones is a gift from God.

Open that gift with joy and be thankful for every moment.

It can end too soon. Don't have regrets.

Yikes!

I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted!!
I need to post about our fun, fun, fun Spring Break vacay to Tucson.
I need to post about starting back to miles after my knee injury.
I need to post about having my last PTO function prior to handing over the reins to someone else.
I need to post a lot of things but I think after catching up on all the blogs that I follow I'll go to sleep.
Yeah, I need to do that. But I promise I'll be back really soon!!

Ouch!

My knee hurts.

It's swollen...

It hurts to bend...

It hurts to straighten...

Forget twisting it.

The PA says its the MCL and the Patellar Ligament and I should stay off it.

I laugh and say "how?"

I DID IT!!!

I ran my first 1/2 marathon this past Sunday!!!

I had decided I wanted to run my first one (yes, I said FIRST one) before I turned 40 (yes, I said 40!) The only race that would give me enough time to train, be in Atlanta and be before the big day was the ING 1/2 this past Sunday. I told my friend Christine "we ought to do that together" never expecting that she would call me a couple days later and tell me that she had signed up!! HOLY MOLY!! So I sign up, I start training and then I hurt my knee.....and Christine had a small problem of 5 broken ribs. Did we let that stop us? Heck no!!!

Decked out in Hello Kitty shirts, red streaks in our hair, white and red striped socks and black nails; we did it! Not only did we do it; we did even better than we thought we would do by over an hour!! We have now officially done something that only 1% of the population has done!! How 'bout that?!!? Proud? Hell yes!!!

13.1 miles? Been there, run that!!!

I think I can, I think I can.....

Ever feel like you're going up this HUGE hill and you're looking at your feet to make sure you don't stumble over a rock or something and each time you glance up to see if you're almost to the top you realize that someone keeps moving the top of the hill?

Yeah, me too.

Girls' Weekend

Shalina and Anna came down to visit for a girls' weekend this past weekend. The girls and I have been looking forward to it for, oooohhh about since it was planned!!! We got to hang out and play on Friday, go the American Girl Doll Store on Saturday and Babyland General on Sunday. It was a great weekend! Of course there was much weeping and wailing when we parted ways on Sunday; and we can't wait to see them again SOON!!! I would write more but if you read Hayden's blog you got it all in detail so why repeat other than to say "IT WAS AWESOME AND WE WISH WE LIVED CLOSER SO WE COULD SEE THEM MORE OFTEN!!"

Too cute!

I was just reading Hayden's blog and I have to tell you that kid can write!!! It's so funny reading her perspective on things. And interesting to see what things she considers most important in life! Man I love that kid!!

Curling

So I've been watching curling for the past two days and the scary thing is that I'm starting to understand it!!

I could SO do this!!!! Now how do I begin training?!?!!? lol

So many things to share!!!

1: Have picked up a bunch of extra shifts at work. Yuck for work; yeah for money.

2: Hayden finished the basketball season with her best game ever. Still nothing in the "W" column but a good game is a good game!!!

3: The girls and I attended a hockey game by ourselves and had an awesome time. Very little fighting at all!

4: I have a new FAVORITE sandwich!! Quizno's Turkey Ranch Sandwich. So delish and so few points!!

5: I've met my 5% weight loss goal with Weight Watchers!! (Hence the above mentioned points comment)

6: The girls had a long weekend off of school. We went to see the Tooth Fairy today with my friend Lisa and her boys. Cute and funny movie!!! The kids loved it and Lisa and I giggled through almost all of it! AND at Andy's suggestion (since he had been working his butt off continually for the past 3 weeks at work AND at home) we went out to Ninja for dinner. Yummy!! The only problem was that during the "show" the guy didn't throw food at us so Hayden got upset. Being 9 is so hard!!

7: We had snow and the girls and I almost got stranded driving in it. Scary moments but we did make it home.

8: Hayden had a yearly eye doctor appointment and..... duh duh duuuuuhhhhh...... got contacts. She's happy about it. Except when she has to have them taken out. And I say have them taken out because she hasn't learned how to do it yet so Mom has to take them out. That is the fun part....NOT!!!

9: The Olympics are on and I've been thoroughly enjoying them. In fact I have decided that the girls need to start training for the snowboard cross race immediately so that they can be in the 2022 Olympics. I guess I should give them the option but it looks really cool and I just know they would be awesome..... and well I'm too old and I want to go to the Olympics and did I mention it looks REALLY cool? I'm just saying! Moving to Lake Placid New York or Vancouver may be rough on the family but in the long run I'm sure it will be the best option for everyone!!! lol

10: I worked Valentine's Day and Valentine's Eve. But I did arrive home Saturday night to find a large heart stomped into the snow with "I love you" inside it. How often can you get that?!!?

11: We had a spend the night party Thursday night and all 4 of the kids got along!! That is such big news that it probably should have been #1 but......

12: My BFF Shalina and her daughter Anna are coming down this weekend!!! We are all sooooo excited. The countdown has been going on for a couple of weeks now. The girls have planned what they will be wearing when they arrive, what they will be doing and where they will be sleeping. I can't wait!!!

Life

Today was busy. After working last night I went to a murder mystery theater luncheon with my Mozzie. I must say that I figured out who the "murderer" was. Yeah I'm that much of a detective.

After that I picked up the girls from school, did homework and enjoyed the Around the World family fun night at the elementary school. Plenty of good food to try and the book fair to boot.

Tomorrow looks like it's going to be another busy one. Gotta get to the school early to pop popcorn for the 1st grade Popcorn Sale. Then help in B's class. Then back to the popcorn.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that I was going to try to have a meeting with H's principal? Sure am. Because of the whole bully thing my child, who absolutely has loved Buford, loves her friends, her class and her teacher, has informed me that she wants to change schools or never go back to school again. Needless to say, this is a deal breaker and now I'm moving up the ladder.

Wish me luck! Or offer any ideas you might have to help me!!!!!

Are you ready for this?

My oldest child hates her name.

Absolutely. Hates. It.

She wants to change it to Zora Wiggs.

And she's serious about it.

What's up with that?

Grrrrrrrr......

That's it? That's it? Are you kidding me? Where is the resolution? Where is the notification of the other child's parents? Where is the calling in the right other kids? Seriously?!?!!? "Don't talk to each other for a month and then we'll revisit the situation" is NOT the answer!!!!!!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Here's hoping....

So I had to call the Assistant Principal at Hayden's school today to discuss a girl who has been bullying Hayden and her friends since the first grade. Why is it that when I have to talk to them I still feel like I'm a kid about to get in trouble? Talking to her last time didn't help, let's hope this time will. This is the same kid who told my daughter and her friends in first grade that she was going to "cut off their heads and bury their bodies". Nice thing for a 7 year old to say. She has now toned it down to mean comments and occasional smacks. The good news is that she hasn't hit Hayden....yet. Mama Bear may go a little ballistic if that were to happen. As it is I'm tired of my child being told they are stupid, ugly and dumb. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!