Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend got off to a great start. On Saturday my group of awesome friends got together and treated ourselves to some much needed pampering and relaxation and got pedicures. It was so nice to sit in our massage chairs, chat, and have our feet rubbed- HEAVEN I tell you. Then we went to La Madelines for lunch where we laughed and cried(as usual) and just talked half of the afternoon away. I love my girls!

Sunday I was woken up with breakfast in bed by my sweet husband and kids. Addyson had a gift that she made me in school. She gave me a candle and a book all about her mom. I thought that I would share, it brought a little tear to my eye and it made me smile. One of those things that I will keep forever.

I am actually 28, but 25 sounds good too.
interpretation: works at the 24 hour fitness(YMCA & LA Fitness), I used to work at 24 hour fitness.

AHHHH!

Interpretation: be funny and makes me laugh- I am not sure about the other part, something about tickling her and she couldn't even tell me what that last word was:)

One of those moments that I realize I am not a horrible mom. She really does know how much I love her and she really does appreciate me.

We went to church and the moms got chocolate this year- very smart I say! After church we headed over to my moms house where my brother and Dave made dinner for all of us. It was a great mother's day! I love my kids bunches!

I hope that all of you mothers out there had a wonderful Mother's Day as well.

Aerobics instuctor extroardinaire!

Well, I am so glad to say that I can check off goal #1 for the year 2008! I had an audition yesterday at LA Fitness and I got myself 2 classes, and more to come. This is big for me because since I stopped teaching 4 years ago after having Ethan my confidence was pretty low! I have been psyching myself out for the last year and 1/2 telling myself that I wasn't in good enough shape, I was too busy, I didn't have the skills anymore- the list goes on and on. For those of you who know me I am not one who likes to be the center of attention so standing up in front of a large class is kind of an odd choice, but I love fitness and I feel like I am doing something important. Best of all, I get paid to work out!!!! So, if anyone wants to come by and see me I will be teaching step on Tuesdays at 4:30 and Saturdays at 8:30.
Now, I just need to work on that goal of getting organized(sigh)!

Mavs

The Mav's biggest fan


Dave and I finally had the chance go to a Mavs game. We are always working and everytime we have been invited we have never been able to go. Of all sports, basketball is one that I actually enjoy watching so I was excited to go. We had a lot of fun with our friends Aprille and Trevor and the Mavs actually won! Trevor works for Samsung so we got a nice suite which was catered- Dave really enjoyed that. Too bad the Mavs just lost AGAIN last night to the Hornets- sorry Aprille they are out of the playoffs.

Happy Birthday Paige, we love you!

Paige's Birthday Party

We celebrated Paige's 1st Birthday a couple of days early. We had my brother and Dave's brother with their families, my mom, and a couple of good friends over on Sunday to celebrate with us.

I love her big cheesy grin for the camera, she sure knows what to do when you say cheese!
My amateur cake decorating.

First we gave her the cherry cake and she like that okay but once I gave her a piece of the chocolate I think she was a lot happier- that's my girl!

We love her so much!!!!

Opening her presents.

She loves bubbles.

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Just a few photos of what Paige likes to do for entertainment! She loves to get into trouble! Just in the 10 minutes that it has taken me to post pictures, she has managed to dump my cup of water all over the floor, throw a roll of paper towels into the tub where Addy and Ethan are bathing, and continue pulling the remaining CD's out of the tower-all the while looking at me and laughing! Yes, she gets a kick out of hearing the word no- hopefully this is not JUST the beginning!

I closed the box of snacks but somehow she still found a way to get in and take a big bite.

Paige knows she is not supposed to climb on the dishwasher, does that stop her, Nooooooooo!

She loves getting into my diaper bag, but her most favorite thing is getting into my wallet and pulling out every single card and all of my receipts. The other day I had to take something back to Walmart and I had to give them the pieces of the receipt because she ripped it up!

Notice the pile of CD's that she is standing in, yea she pulled each of them out one by one and threw them on the floor. Sorry about the random door- Dave is still putting our bathroom back together from the tiling project 4 months ago- love you Dave, but seriously!

She is my little helper, um not so much! She is great at unloading the dishwasher though- too bad they are unloaded onto the floor.

Pretty self-explanatory!
She keeps me on my toes! It is a good thing she is so stinking cute!

Somebody help me PLEASE!

This is Addyson's room, need I say more! It takes me days of trying to get her to clean her room. I take things away, I don't let her watch TV, I nag and nag and after a while I resort to yelling! This room was just cleaned last Saturday, I know it is small but am I crazy to think it shouldn't be this messy. I know some of you out there are great at teaching your children cleanliness and how to work- can somebody give me some advice on how to get this girl to clean up her act?!!!

Like sister, like brother

Last week wasn't our first visit to the ER with a broken arm. About 2 years ago, Addyson broke her arm. She broke her arm playing at mall's play area. She slid down the bulldozer and landed on her elbow. She cracked the supracondyla of her humerus.

When Ethan broke his arm she had words of encouragement, because she had been through it before. Before we went to the Dr.'s office we looked at pictures of Addyson with her cast on so Ethan would feel a little better about it. Addy got 2 different cast, first purple and then pink. Ethan is hoping he gets another one too- he wants orange, his favorite color.

Addy's new haircut

After weeks of begging Addyson to let me take her to get her haircut, she gave in, but I had to be the one to cut her hair. Addyson was blessed with hair just like me, very thin and once it gets too long it gets flat and oh so tangly. I was nervous to cut her hair, because knowing my luck I would really mess it up. I have to say, I did a pretty good job. I even layered it so it curls under- I am good! I think it looks so adorable on her and she loves it too!

Easter FUN!

So, this is one of those times where it would be good to make a slideshow because I have so many picture. Honestly, I just don't feel like it! I hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter, we sure did at our house. We decorated eggs a couple of days early this year-my attempt to fill up some Spring Break time. Things never go as smoothly as I envision in my head. My kids got so excited about decorating eggs that their capacity to listen and follow instructions was seriously diminished! Because of their lack of listening skills and patience, our eggs weren't quite as colorful as they could have been. We ended up with orange, green, and dark green dyes because the pink one got ruined and Ethan dropped a couple of colors together. They still enjoyed themselves and were so very proud of what they made. I was suprised that there was only one casualty out of our 12 eggs- I certainly expected more to be dropped. Although once Ethan had a bite of the egg he broke he was on a mission to brake more.


On Saturday morning we headed to our local Albertson's store for their annual Easter egg hunt. This was our first year going and I was very impressed! They had the kids divided by age groups and each had an aisle in the produce department. They set the kids loose to rummage through shredded paper for the eggs. They had a lot of the eggs filled with free produce, bakery items, $15 gift cards to Albertson's, Toys R Us gift cards, and free starbucks.

Ethan was at a serious disadvantage, poor guy didn't get very many eggs!

Sunday morning the kids woke up to their Easter baskets. I didn't get to see their excitement because I was up until 5:15 working and then coming home to fill their baskets. But at 8:00 I could sure hear their excitement!

We were late to church(because I couldn't get myself to wake up-per the usual) so we had to take photos of the kids after church.

Dave was wonderful and practically cooked all of Easter dinner, while I tried to get in a nap. My mom and her new fiance(I will post more about that later) came over for dinner. After dinner Jarrett(the fiance) had to go to work and my mom stayed to watch the kids have an Easter egg hunt in our backyard. I would post pictures of the kids hunting for eggs, except I am embarrassed of how tall our grass is(we both work way to much). The tall grass made for a great Easter egg hunt though.

Paige had a long day, she was so tired! I wish that I could get blogger to upload my videos because we got the cutest one of Dave trying to feed her cereal while she struggles to stay awake. So cute!

Anyway, there is my novel! I hope it didn't bore you.

Our trip to the zoo.....which ended in a trip to the ER

We had a great time at the Dallas zoo. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed having dad with us. The whole time we were there, Ethan wanted to see the ostrichs- he loves ostrichs. Too bad the Dallas zoo doesn't have ostrichs. Well, just as we were finishing our last stretch at the zoo we saw a statue of an ostrich. I told Ethan to go stand on the railing and get a picture. The next thing I know, he is climbing on top of the highest rail and he falls! He cried of course, and when Dave went to pick him up he said, "he just broke his arm!" I said, "How do you know?" He said, "Look at it!" Yep, it was broke! So we hightailed it out of there as fast as we could and drove to the ER where I work. Addyson was so upset in the car on the way to the hospital. She was crying because she was so worried about Ethan- so sweet! Ethan was so good, he was great with the Dr., nurses, and radiology techs. The only part they had trouble with was sticking him for the IV-he screamed a bit!

You can see his arm looks a little deformed
His X-ray before the reduction.

He broke his radius and ulna so the Dr., aka Y.C. did a slight reduction. They had to do a conscious sedation which means they had to give him some Etomidate to sedate him and some Versed so that he wouldn't remember because he wasn't completely out. He was hooked up to oxygen, a blood pressure cuff, a pulseoxometer, and a 12-lead heart monitor because he was under anesthesia. Every 30 seconds he would say, "Oh my goodness, when are they going to take all of this stuff off of me?" He hated being hooked up to all of that stuff! It was funny to watch him wake up from the anesthesia, he was a little out of it, and said some pretty funny stuff! Poor guy, he endured a lot! He was such a trooper through it all! For now he just has a splint and an arm sling and I will have to take him to the orthopedic Dr. on Monday for the actual cast.

Spring Break- Day Two

Today was a stormy day so we decided to go and have some fun indoors at Animal House. Animal House is huge warehouse full of bounce houses, with a couple of playgrounds, and a couple of baby areas. We got a huge group of people together and the kids had a blast! There were a ton of people there- but no one got hurt so it was all good.

Paige loved the rocking horse!

Ethan worked up a sweat, he was playing hard!

Spring Break- Day One

On the first day of spring break, we slept in-okay maybe it was just me who slept in. When Addyson is home, Ethan has someone to play with and someone who will fix him breakfast so he doesn't care if I sleep in. I know, it is sad but I have had back pain since Saturday- so Sunday night I took a couple of muscle relaxers and they did a number on me. I took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who and they loved it! They pretty much love anything that is animated, but I actually thought it was a cute show also.

On Mondays Addyson has dance class at the YMCA. Since it is spring break there were no kids there- I guess we are the only ones who didn't go anywhere. Anyway, it was parents day-meaning that parents get to watch them practice. It was really fun to see her concentrating so hard on her dance steps. The best part was when I got to dance with her. I was doing some tap moves and it was so fun, I always wanted to take tap lessons! Maybe, I will have to sign up for dance lessons as well.

I survived!!

Well, I survived 2 plane rides and 4 days with all three kids! I'm not going to lie, it was hard! I definitely feel like I need a vacation from my vacation, mostly a vacation away from my kids! Ethan was trouble, trouble, trouble! My dad likes the simple life, he lives in a trailer and basically never cooks so we went out to eat a lot. My kids have a hard time sitting in a restaraunt without getting wild. Despite the frustrations with the kids, I had a great time visiting my dad. It was really great to see him and spend some time with him. I can only imagine how hard it is for him to be so far away from all of his kids and grandkids- I know that he is lonely. My kids sure enjoyed being spoiled by Grandpa. He took them to Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, Fantasy Fair at his work The Excalibur, and to the movies. He got us a great hotel, the kids could have spent the entire time in the hotel. They loved the big comfortable beds and the flat screen TV that they could watch cartoons on for hours! We had a little drama with the girlfriend, which I am pretty sure is no longer his girlfriend. It is pretty sad when she couldn't even handle him spending time with his own daughter. All in all, I am grateful that we could take some time to visit. I know that he needed that. Although, the next time we see him- he better make the trip out here. It is a whole lot easier for him to fly to us than for all of us to fly to him. I love my Dad!!!

Wish me Luck

I am going to visit my dad today with the kids and no husband. I am so scared and nervous! Scared because It is never fun flying with 3 small children, especially a busy 10 month old that does not like to sit still. I was supposed to fly out tomorrow but because I get to fly standby there has been a change of plans. The flight that I was planning on taking filled up at the last minute so I will be taking a late flight tonight, which may be good-hopefully my kids will sleep! I am nervous because I will likely be meeting my dad's girlfriend who has not made a good first impression. She caused a lot of drama between my parents. They were great friends, but since she stepped in and got extremely jealous my parents no longer talk. I am not one to pretend very well, so I am hoping that I can put on a nice face and try to see what might be likeable about her. This whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing with my parents is strange. It will almost be 3 years that they have been divorced so it is still fresh and I am trying to adjust. For some reason it is harder for me to see my dad with someone else than it is with my mom. Anyway, I hope that it is a great trip and get good quality time with my dad. I should have great pictures to post next week!