Just another use for goldfish crackers

On Sunday, 2 weeks ago, we were anxiously watching the UK MS State basketball game. Ok I was watching anxiously, Jeff was some what watching, and Daniel was in his room playing. Anyway. Towards the end of the game, Daniel wandered into the living room and began to watch the game with us. He noticed that Demarcus Cousins had “snot” in his nose. I explained to him that no it was not snot, it was a plug to keep his nose from bleeding all over the place. He accepted that and helped me cheer for UK until the game was over.

Fast forward 2 nights. Jeff went in Daniel’s room to tell him it was time to turn the movie off and go brush his teeth. All I heard was, “Go show your mother.” Don’t you just love to hear those words? Daniel comes around the corner into the living room and he has 2 orange goldfish crackers in his nose. One in each side. He wanted, “to make sure that his nose did not bleed like Cousins.” (Cousins plug was orange.) I would like to be able to report that I immediately told him that it is dangerous to put things up his nose, but alas, I cannot. I had to get control of my laughing first. And no, he did not eat them when I told him to get them out. Although, he probably would have if I had not specifically said to throw them away.

If you are ever in need of some DIY first aid, try goldfish to stop nose bleeds. It has been 4 year old tested and approved.

The red circle on the picture is the nose plug in question.

Some family photos

So it has been a while since I have written anything. Seems like life has just been busy and honestly, I have had a bit of writers block. I am trying to get back in the swing of things though. I thought for my first post I would share some pics I came across recently on my Uncle’s facebook page. First though a few recent ones of us.

This is our new 4 legged addition. Kysses the Kitten. I found her when she was about 5.5 weeks old. She has quite quickly become very spoiled.

This is a site I never thought to see. Jeff in a UK shirt! We have all gotten into the UK basketball this year. Daniel and I more so than Jeff, but we are working on him!

This is Aunt Pat and Uncle Kenny as the Clampetts. They had come down to AL right after I was born.

This is my Gramma, Big Bird, Mom (in the back), and Aunt Pat. I believe this is at Busch Gardens right after Mom found out she was having me.

This is my Gramma and my Grandfather, when they were younger.

This is Uncle Kenny, Mom, and Uncle Bill. Doesn't he look thrilled to have his pic taken? I believe this was in the early 90s.

This is Gramma as one of the Clampetts. This was taken right after I was born in 1983.

Hopefully I will be back to posting regularly in the next few weeks. I have to say I have missed it!

A look at what we have been doing

Wow! We have been busy. Here are some pictures of what we have been doing.

Making halloween cookies at our neighbors halloween party.

Bundling up to go to Keeneland Race Course in the cold while our family from AL was in town.

Me and my sister in law on the tram to the race course.

My sister and brother in law at the track.

Daniel the bathrobe jockey

Daddy and Daniel on the tram to the track

Me at the entrance to the track. I might not have looked fashionable but I was warm!

The perfect end to a great weekend: lunch and a random meeting with a chicken.

He has become quite the helper in the kitchen. He is cutting up cheese for my homemade mac and cheese

He wanted the squares of cheese to be just so.

Helping the transporters at work with me when he was sick.

Helping me make banana bread last weekend. And yes I am wearing pink floyd pj pants!

I went to jail on Wednesday for the MDA lock up. It was fun! I was disapointed that the hot pink Caddillac Escalade stretch limo was not the one to pick me up though :(

Mummy pizzas I made for Daniel's lunch at daycare today. I thought the kids would get a kick out of them.

Peanut butter spider crackers I fixed them as well.

So as you can see we have been quite busy in the past few weeks!

Mommy Fell in Cow SHIT Water and Other Tales From the Race

We all went to the Nascar Nationwide series race at the KY Motor Speedway last weekend. We went last year and had a blast so decided to go back again this year. We stayed at the same campground because the people are extremely nice and it is a fun place to camp. They have a stream that runs through part of the grounds that the kids like to play in. Daniel remembered it from last year and could not wait to play in it when we got there on Friday. After we had camp set up and had grilled some hotdogs we all went down to the creek. Jeff wanted to walk all the way down to the bridge and get out there. I told him I did not think you could get out there but he insisted that you could. Oh yeah you can get out there.....the same way that the cows cross over. Right where they um go to the bathroom. We were crossing the creek when SPLASH!!! I slipped and fell in. In the cow crap water. With my camera. And only pair of sneakers I brought with me. NOT HAPPY!

Needless to say I had to walk through the camp to get to the showers and all the people that worked there teased me all weekend long about swimming with the cows. The closest Wal Mart was 20 miles away and was the sorriest super center I have ever seen. I had to buy a new camera and a nice new pair of shiny silver sneakers because that was the only freaking pair they had.

I have rotten luck with cameras. I lost mine last year when I was leaving the race because my bag had a hole in it and it fell out. 6 months before that I left mine on the top of the car when I was getting Daniel in the car and forgot about it until I heard it bounce off the top of my car while going down the highway. This makes my 3rd camera in less than 2 years time. If this one does not last I am giving up lol.

We had a blast at the race on Saturday. (And no I did NOT go in the creek when the boys did.) Daniel chowed down on a huge bag of kettle corn and sat back and waited for the wrecks. (That is his favorite part) We got to see a couple right in front of us so he was very happy about that. Joey Logano beat out Kyle Busch right at the end of the race for the second year in a row. I was happy about that because I do not like Kyle Busch.

All in all it was a great weekend. Other than the cow water incident.

Monday night Jeff's brother called and Daniel wanted to tell him about the race.

D: "Mommy fell in the cow SHIT water!"

B: Hysterical laughing at Daniels choice of words.
J: "Daniel! Don't say that! That is NOT nice."

Oops I think I might have used a few choice words after falling in the water. Bad Mommy.

The clean part of the creek.

I want a job driving one of these

Coming out of the garage area before the race

Waiting for the race to start

Boogity boogity boogity let's go racing boys!

A dilemma

Most of you who have been reading for a while know that my mom had a scare with ovarian cancer a few months back. She had to have a complete hysterectomy done and was supposed to take 6 weeks off work. She did not have any complications from the surgery itself, but has been in excrutiating intestinal and abdominal pain since the surgery.

She has been to several different doctors and had numerous tests done. The consensus has been that because her uterus was so swollen (like the size of a volleyball) that all of her internal organs got displaced. Now they are trying to get back to normal and all the moving and shifting has aggrevated her colon.

She was supposed to start back to work towards the end of April, but because of the severity of the pain, this has been her first week back to work. She has been on disability whike out of work, but when you go from making over a $1000 a week to $400 a week, it is a HUGE difference.

Money always seems to be tight for them anyway. I love my Mom but she does not always make wise financial decisions. Since the cut back in her wages things have gotten REALLY tight for them. It will be another week before she gets a normal paycheck.

I was talking to my Dad on the phone earlier and he told me he is $400 overdrawn at the bank and has no way to fix it until he gets his monthly check. (My dad is a disabled retired US Marine.)

My dilemma is this: I could send him the money to take care of that, but doing that would take most of the money we have saved for our emergency fund. If something happened to us in the next few weeks we would have nothing to fall back on. I could send them both a little money to help them out until Mom gets paid next week but not enough to bail them out or disrupt our financial security. (What little we have.) I could send them the full amount with the promise that when Mom gets paid I get our money back. The last option makes me feel bad though because my parents have done so much for me and have not asked for anything in return. Ok other than occasional monthly visits from their grandson now that we have moved so far away.

BLECH! I do not know what to do! Anyone have any thoughts?

Daniel's Birthday

It does not seem like 4 years ago I was taking care of a tiny little baby. He has gotten so big and grown up so fast. He had a wonderful time on Saturday and thank you to all of you who helped make his birthday special.

We were worried that the weather was not going to clear up in time but by 3:00 it was nice and sunny outside. The kids were all dying to get in the new pool and finally after it had time to warm up a little bit we relented.

When the hamburgers and hotdogs were done Daniel did not want to get out of the pool. Finally we bribed him with his cake and he agreed to get out and have cake and open presents. As soon as the presents were open they were back in the pool. With a few of his new toys.

After a few of the guests had left Jeff's mom brought out one of her gifts to Daniel. A Spongebob slip and slide. Of course my husband the "big kid" had to show the little kids how it was done. They all had a blast.

It was so nice to be able to have so many people over and have such a good time. We never could have done this in our old apartment. Plus Jeff's family that came up from AL were able to stay with us instead of getting a hotel, so we were able to spend more time with them.

It was a great weekend for all of us.

Here are a few pictures:

Daniel LOVED his cake.



They were whales and sharks!

Supervising lol!

Eating cake with Uncle Brian and Gigi.

Fun on the slip and slide.

Big kid fun on the slip and slide!

A day of laziness I mean rest

I spent all my free time last week washing clothes and cleaning house. I did NOT want to spend all weekend doing those dreaded chores. Saturday we always have a bunch of running around to do. The Farmer's Market downtown, ALDI's for groceries, depending on what else I need a trip to Meijer's or Wal Mart.

We got everything done on Saturday.

Sunday we stayed in our PJ's ALL DAY LONG. Yep. We were lazy and it was sooooo nice.

We cooked breakfast. Then we pulled out our couch into a bed and all piled up and watched a movie. Then Daniel had lunch and took a nap while Jeff and I watched more movies and he also napped. Then at 5 I had to wake Daniel up and he did a flying leap on to Jeff who was napping on the couch. It was quite funny. Must have been the way he threw his hands up over his head like a cheerleader getting ready to jump off the top of the pyramid, and then jumped full force on Jeff. (And he did not get the idea to jump on Jeff and wake him up from me. Nope I would NEVER tell him to do that. Ever.)

Ok maybe he did.

Leftovers for supper. And then bed. It was a nice relaxing day. Can I do it again tomorrow?

I sleep by myself

Daniel loves to talk on the phone to all of our family back in AL. That is, when he is not "busy" with toys, cartoons and the like. Last week he was talking to Uncle Brian and this is what we heard:

"Mommy and Jeff sleep together in their big bed."

"I sleep by myself in my big bed, but I have 2 pillows. That way when I get a brother he can sleep with me."

At this point I added:

"You mean when he is a baby?"

"NO Mom, when he is a big boy like me!"

Evidently he has not given up on a brother or sister, and now he wants them to share his bed. (He has a full size bed which was given to us free, that is why he calls it a big bed.)

An outpouring of words

I feel a lot better today. I was in bed by 9 last night and slept wonderfully! Except for the really strange dreams I had this morning.....WEIRD. No more grilled cheeses before bed for me. I am definitely a lot less witchy today. Jeff brought me roses last night to apologize for him being witchy. (Although Daniel tried to take the credit and tell me HE got me flowers.) I apologized for me being less than my normal self, because lets face it I am witchy all the time, just some days more so than others. We all enjoyed a nice peaceful evening cooking and spending time together.

I still have a lot of things I need to catch up on. My kitchen stock is running pretty low. We have been eating store bought bread and chips for the past few weeks. GASP! I know how horrible right? I still need to just take some time to relax for my own peace of mind. I have lots of recipes I have found that I have not been able to try. I have lots of ideas for blog posts that I just have not been able to get too. BUT...first is going to come the relaxing. And the cooking. Strangely enough if I am in the kitchen messing around to me it IS relaxing.

I did find time Sunday to whip up a batch of my homemade mayo and I DID IT ENTIRELY FROM MEMORY! Ok so I ALMOST forgot to add the lemon, but I remembered at the last second and threw it in last and it still came out fine.

Savings are continuing to grow even with the purchase of a washer and dryer from craigslist. I still have some extra money that I am planning on transferring over to the savings, but I want to get through the first month of bills at our new place to see what kind of expenses we are looking at first.

Mom is doing really well. She went back to the Doctor yesterday and he said everything seems to be healing the way it needs to be. She said she does not however recommend getting a stomach virus the week after having major abdominal surgery. NOT FUN!

We are really enjoying the new place. Daniel loves the fact that there is a yard for him to play in and he enjoys seeing all the other kids who come walking by with their parents. He has already made friends with a little girl right down the road and does not understand why we can't go over there everyday. Luna is enjoying the freedom to go outside, and she is trying her darndest to catch one of the million robins in the yard, but has had no luck yet. Spot is enjoying being outside in her own yard. She has even quit barking quite as much as she used too. Now it is every other person that walks by that she barks at. Jeff and I are enjoying the extra room and the fact that the rest of our family is happy.

All in all, it has been a really crazy past 2 months for us but things are finally going to settle back down. (Who am I kidding something else will come up in a few days I am sure. That's just how we roll around here.)

Moving Time

I will be glad once we get everything moved to our new place! I have missed blogging the past week or so. I will try and post here and there this week but I am still going to be pretty spotty. I will be reading all my favorite blogs when I can though.

Daniel is glad to be back in "Tucky." He did not want to leave Mimi's house Sunday but once we got on the road he was ready to be home. We have been talking tohim about moving and I think he thought we were moving to another city. Once we showed him that we were just moving around the corner and he saw his yard and that he was going to be able to play outside more he is ready to go! Everyday when we go down there he asks me if we are going to sleep there yet. Just a few more days and we will be! I am ready to get the move behind us though. These past few weeks have been crazy for me and I am ready to get back to normal.

Mom is still doing really well. She went back to the Dr yesterday and got the staples taken out. When I talked to her last night she said that completely wore her out. Hopefully in the next few weeks she will be back to normal and pain free! I am just glad it was good news.

Quick update on Mom

I took a break from the computer this week while I have been in AL but I just wanted to let you guys know Mom is home and is doing good. She is sore but able to get around a little bit. The best news came yesterday when the doctor called with her pathology results.......Not cancer!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!

I am spending the day visiting with friends before we leave tomorrow. I will catch up on all my blogs and blog reading when I get the chance. It might be a week or so though because we will be moving this next week when I get back.

The saga of my romance

This weekend marks mine and Jeff's first anniversary! Made it through a year without killing him. YES! Just kidding. Although there are times......

A long LONG time ago when I was 13 or so I met this guy named Jeff. I liked him, he liked me. BUT we lived a long way apart (an hour). When you can't drive, that is a long way. So we lost contact.

Fast forward 11 years....

My friend Emily, had been dating his brother for several years, and called and told me they were getting married, and asked if I would be in the wedding. I said yes. Never crossed my mind that Jeff would be there. I had not thought about him in years. (mean I know) The day of the rehearsal I could not figure out who the guy was that was staring at me. And I mean STARING. All the time. Rude much? Anyway...that night Em said something about Brian's brother Jeff, and a lightbulb went off! That was who that rude guy was!

After the wedding (and a few free cocktails to get up his nerves) he approached me at the reception. We spent forever talking. He had ridden to the reception with his Mom and she got ready to go so I offered to give him a ride home. It was on my way. Kind of. In a not really but not that far out of the way, way. We stayed and danced and had a blast. When we got to his place my sister and I went in and stayed for a while talking some more. When we got ready to leave, he got my number and said he would call me. (Yeah right is what I was thinking. He did not even have a phone.)

The next day my sister and I went to the movies. I was waiting on her to get done with hers and my phone rang. It was Jeff! He asked me out on a date for the next Friday and I agreed. (also happened to be my now sister in laws birthday) We had a great time Friday night and when we got ready to head our separate directions, he asked me out again for later that weekend. I explained that the weekends were the only time I really go to spend any time with my son so no. He told me to bring him with me. (He wanted to go to a porsche race.) I was skeptical but I did. He was great with Daniel and Daniel seemed to really like him.

Pretty soon it got to where we were both spending a LOT of time at his house. He would buy pie and other treats for Daniel to have when he knew we were coming over. He would buy me the beer I liked that I would not buy myself because it is pricey. (Hey what did you stop doing that for!?) Daniel responded by taknig the eggs out of the refrigerator and putting them in Jeff's bed and turning the breakers off to the house.

On Halloween he asked me to marry him. (kind of.) It was one those I would marry you tomorrow kind of things and I was like Really? and he said yes I would so I said well so would I. So we were engaged. LOL Really romantic huh?

We had planned on getting married in the fall of 2008 but in December we found out I would be getting the promotion to manager and we knew we were moving at some point soon. So we did the even more romantic wedding! We went to the court house on Feb 29 and got hitched!

We had I guess you could say a whirlwind romance, but I love him even more today then I did then. He gets on my nerves, has atrocious manners sometimes, infuriates me, but what can I say? He has been there for me and Daniel both ever since we re-met. And life has really thrown some big changes on us in the past year.

I was his first kiss and he swears I am going to be his last! (Wait a minute....did you mean I am the kiss of death?)

Tomorrow is the day

I go to the doctor tomorrow to have my colposcopy and biospy done. I am scared. This is also going to be a new experience for me to have someone there with me. Jeff told me tonight no matter what he was there for me. I honestly think it scares me more that he is going to be there. I am used to doing things myself. Then I share what is going on with everyone. It is a new experience for me to have someone that is going to be there WITH me. That to me is scary. Please offer up prayers or thoughts or whatever it is that you do for me tonight and tomorrow.

The date is set

Mom will have her surgery on Wednesday March 11. We have decided that we are going to hope that when they remove her uterus, that maybe she will lose 20lbs as well. You know how you hear about the people that have a gigantic tumor and do not even realize it? We were joking around about that last night. How can you NOT know that you have a tumor that big?

I am going to head down to AL that Tuesday and be there the rest of that week. My sister will be getting a crash course in cooking and doing laundry. Should be interesting.

Another positive note to it, is that I will be in AL for more than 2 days, so I am going to get to see a few people that I normally do not have time for, and spend more time with my family than I normally do. YAY!

YAY Brian!

Well Jeff's brother did not win Jeopardy, but he did good. Wish I could get $10,800 for answering trivia. Maybe I need to try out...

Brother in law on Jeopardy tonight!

Jeff's brother Brian makes his debut on Jeopardy tonight! We still do not know if he won or not. He was not allowed to tell us. (come on how are they going to know if you do or not.)

So check it out tonight at 7:30pm est and 6:30pm cst.