One Of Those Long All Over The Place Posts.

So far summer has been stressful, crazy, and fun. I won't lie, there was a day again last week Dave walked in the door and I completely fell apart. I know my own flaws though. It's not the kids although they keep me frazzled, it's the fact that I just feel like I can't get anything done and I NEED it done. I am so obsessive of that. I feel like a failure constantly and geez there's just not enough hours in a day even with me up at 6 and down at 11. I could work and work on my house inside/outside all day but there's 20 more things I just didn't get to. There's hobbies I want to do, projects I want to do with the kids and I just can't get to it all. By 5 o'clock the kids are just unruly wanting dinner, screaming at the gate since they can't come in the kitchen, it's at dinner time where I just go off the deep end. It's going to be a long summer is all I'm sayin. :)

We had Alex's friend birthday party on Saturday at the YMCA pool. The kids had a blast. I do friend parties in the morning from 10-12 so it's done, out of the way and we have the rest of the day to ourselves. So far I have never had a parent tell me they hate my morning parties. lol She had about 14 girls come this year for the fun.

Dominic (in the green tube) was the only boy which was hilarious since he's a flirt. He had a grand ol time though and I'm thinking I'll just do his friend party there in February as well.

They let us use the afterschool room for gifts and cupcakes. I must say her friends know her quite well because they gave her mainly all crafts. Oh but the best to her was the black Poodle Webkinz. (sigh) We took her out on her birthday to pick out her own present. She got a double Hannah Montana disc and a Littlest Pet Shop Panda which is similar to a webkinz.

I'm not sure if anyone had noticed by pictures that I had been letting Damien's hair grow out. I think the last hair cut we gave him was before Christmas. Dave had been wanting to buzz him for awhile but I loved his new long hair. He had this surfer boy thing going on and I was wanting to hang on to it.

Finally though, I decided to go ahead and let Dave shave him off. We knew he'd probably do fine since he had in the past but Dominic went first to let him watch and see how easy it was to let Daddy cut his hair. Then Damien hopped up there on the sink holding a mirror as daddy shaved it all off.

I fed him M & M's as I always do to keep him busy. By the time Dave was done the sink was full of hair and it was done. I think it looks great either way but it was nice to see what it would look like all grown out. The weather has been just awesome lately. July we'll all be dying in Kansas of the 100 degree weather but right now it's been 70-80 degrees so we've been taking full advantage of it. Usually by 9-10 am I get the kids out to start burning off energy and we stay out till lunch time. They play on all the equipment, play ball but their favorite part is when I let Toby and Oreo out for play time. Then after lunch I put them out again around 1 when I put Mia down for her nap. I'll let them play in the pool, sprinklers ride bikes, swing. Anything to keep them moving. lolThey stay out for about a hour and come back in usually crashing while watching TV. AHHHH.... The things we do for sanity. :) With all this extra summer time together, Alex and I have been trying to do little crafts. Somedays I feel so bad because I tell her "later" about 15 times. It's always at the worst time when she wants to do something. I'm sure others can relate! Makes me feel like a horrible mom but I can't just drop what I'm doing to do a project. Today we made a whole slew of cards. Mine are the 4 tall ones. She got alittle sticker happy with her's. lolI decided a few weeks ago to change around our little office area so it accommodates the kids and they can do crafts and other projects downstairs. I have so much to do before I can call it finished but I've made some major headway on it. I've put all the puzzles and games in one spot. All the schooling books and other things related to school in an area. Our craft area is a bit still unorganized but it's all in one spot. Eventually I want to get all the books in a bookshelf instead of a hundred here and there in everyone's rooms the way it is now. I have wanted to do this for awhile so it would be easier to find things. I get so annoyed traveling around looking for a game, book, etc. Remember Dave's computer hobby? Well the bar is loaded with monitors and junk for him to get rid of so we can use it for crafts, puzzles, my coupons, etc. Here's a few pics of it so far. Now to organize it better. lol Then last week I took 3 afternoons and alphabetized all of our CD's. They had been packed up since last year when we swore we were going to move. Maybe I'm nesting, Dave thinks I've lost my mind. Made me feel so much better to have it done though.

Rabbits and Rugrats

I swear by the time we get to the time of the County fair, we're going to have a backyard full of rabbits. Not by breeding, but by finding them. So far we have 2 bucks. Here I was worried about a collection of Webkinz a short time ago which are no work at all! I'm ok with it though as I love animals. This is "Oreo" as the kids are calling him but he's not an Oreo because he's blue. I'd rather call him something else, Oreo doesn't fit. He's a Blue Dutch rabbit someone gave to us. Reading up and having some breeders look him over at last nights 4H Rabbit meeting, he's not show able or he could be, he'll just be disqualified quickly. LOL! He has a white blaze down the center of his face but no white blaze on his cheeks at all which is needed for proper fanciness of a Dutch. Oh and no white feet either.



Monday night was one of those multiple things going on kinda nights. (rolling eyes) Dom had ball practice, Alex her regular 4H club meeting, me PTO which I was unable to make it to. I tried sitting through 4H with the boys and Mia but they were loud enough I couldn't hear so I left because of the uncomfortable parent stares I was receiving and took them across the street to the gas station. A mom I know who works there, and I, sat around and chatted for a bit about school, the kids, and summer. The town my kid's attend school has a population of 1,000 so you can see how easily she could just sit around and chat. I bought the boys each a package of Chips a'hoy and Teddy Grahams to engorge in so I could get my adult time. Our kids are in the same class so we chatted about school field trips/events coming up and what the kids were doing this summer. She has 4 boys to entertain so I feel for her. Ball is huge in this small town so we talked about our kids playing ball and when practices were etc. Then she asked how much I thought my grocery bill would go up during the summer. Crap. You know I really hadn't thought. I don't believe it went up more than $100 maybe per month last year but she said she usually expects a few hundred. Now I'm wondering if I should add an extra $200 into the monthly budget for kid food. I've already figured I need an extra $100 a month just to take them to the zoo, parks, museum, water park, speech therapy, etc to keep them busy. I know doing daycare I bought between $150-200 a week so I can easily see me going back to that with 2 bigger kid hungry hippos out of school.


Someone from church referred a woman to me who needs daycare for her 9 month old little girl. She called Monday and was supposed to be coming over yesterday. I stayed home for the day, got the house spotless, did some work on the flower bed, planted and watered flowers so the porch looked nice and she never called or showed. I wasn't happy to say the least. Finally around 7 pm when a light bulb went off and I finally realized she wasn't coming, I packed the kids up and we went for a walk. A short half mile walk and when we got home I was soooo feeling it from everything else I had done to get prepared for the lady to come over. This time I'll blame that I'm seriously out of shape rather than the baby. The kids had a great time though and that's really all that matters. That and the fact this lady never called! Grr!