It's a girl!

Two weeks ago today, we had another baby girl.....A puppy named Pinkie. She is too darling and quite smart. Middlest has been diligently getting up with her at 5:30am every day and taking her for a walk. She also taught her to sit. I think she is 12 weeks old now, but we don't have the exact birthdate. That kind of makes me nuts. We like to celebrate EVERYTHING around here!

That brings our tally up to 5 "daughters" now. Oldest, Middlest, Littlest, Bella the cat, and Pinkie the puppy. YIKES!! I have been so busy it is gross.

Mike has begun traveling a lot again so I am doing it alone. Oldest is the best assistant I could ever ask for though. I am really grateful to have such wonderful kids.

Work has been over the top busy the last 2 months. I always procrastinate and I ended up doing about 20 site visits to preschools and Head Start for their fluoride varnishes at the last minute. I did complete all of the visits and the little darlings got their fluoride. Now, I have an incredible amount of paperwork to do. Government jobs!!

Two weeks ago, on Friday night, we got to have Marley for the night!! That was sooo fun. She is such a sweetheart and so easy going. Only trouble we had with her was that she wanted to sleep too much. Not bad!! She is certainly welcome here anytime. Her mommy is attending cosmetology school and has class Tuesdays - Saturdays, so all of her family and friends are taking turns with Mar on Saturdays. I feel very blessed to be the only non-grandma whom has gotten the little darling for an overnight. I think I have made it pretty clear on this blog and in real life how much I adore Marley!! Her mommy knows she is in excellent hands here.

That Saturday, Littlest had a dance recital and Marley was soo excited to attend. She sat very well on Middlest's lap so her nana could take pics of my acrobat.

Later today, Taylor is graduating from high school and having a lovely party. I am contributing homemade brownies that I tasted earlier this week. They were the best ever! A lot of my friends are cake lovers, so there will probably be a sugar coma going on later. haha

Since summer is coming, I will probably be able to blog more regularly. I hope to do better.
Have a great week.

Good Friday To You

Hello!
I was on the way to work this morning and saw 4 people on a busy intersection holding rather large crosses that stated: "He died for you" I gave the one gentleman that I met eyes with a big smile and a thumbs up!! It got me to thinking...

Middlest decided to join me at work today and actually did a lot of folding dental hygiene instructions and emergency tips and putting them into envelopes. She then stapled papers for me. I really worked her!! She decided to color with my highlighters about 10 minutes before we left to meet Grandpa Dan, Mike, Oldest and Youngest for lunch. We.had a nice lunch and then I went back to work and my dad went off to do whatever it is that happily retired men do. Mike and the three girls went to see the Hannah Montana movie. I am soooo lucky that my girls have such a wonderful daddy that would take them to see such a girly-girl movie that also happens to have Billy Ray Cyrus in it.

We have been trying to split the kids up lately because the constant fighting is driving me to insanity! Tomorrow Littlest is having a friend over and for once in my life I am not going to let Middlest also have a friend over. She isn't thrilled, but she got to come and work in my sweatshop today, so hey... Last weekend between the 2 nights and the 3 girls, we had 5 overnights. Way too much.

On Easter we will be going to an Amish town with excellent German food. My dad will be joining us. He has been treating me to lunch a lot lately due to my financial diet, so we will treat him to a wonderful Easter dinner. It is the same place we went in September for Oldest's 16th birthday. Oldest and I are already starting to salivate. It is our FAVE!!

Happy Easter to everyone.

Windy and Rainy Weekend

This whole weekend was rainy, gray, and crappy outside. I was in pajamas the entire time!! I did shower and put clean pjs on. :) My best friends and I are on The Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. Brandi and Skip began their makeover several months ago and have paid off their new vehicles and have a rather beautifully-sized savings account. Kelly and Randy are in better shape than we are, but I have begun the process. I have always spent a ton of money on crafts, decorating the house and dressing the kids. Mike has tried to reel me back from the ledge, but I was not interested at all. I am going to the bank tomorrow to find out where our automatic withdrawal for our van and truck are going. I think Mike is very excited that I finally saw the light!! Let me tell you, it was burning the retinas right out of my eyes!! I want to participate fully in our lives and get out of the debt we have accumulated. I have noticed that Mike is sleeping better at night the last few nights. I have accepted my share of this burden. YAY!!!

ALL ABOARD

Yesterday, my friend Dawn and I went on the train to Chicago for a dental convention. It was sooo much fun, but such a long and exhausting day! I got up at 4am. I was sick all week with the crud and thought it would suck, but God bless zithromax!!
We got to Chicago and grabbed a cab to the McCormick Place and spent the next 6 hours basically trick-or-treating from dental vendors. We then jumped into a cab and went back to the train and came straight home. What a day!! My shoulders and back are killing me from the haul I got. I had eaten a snickers at 5:45am and realized once we were in the cab that I hadn't eaten all day. Not normal for me. Dawn was on a mission and said if I even had to pee excessively, she would move on without me. Luckily I don't have Brandi's bladder. HAHA
It truly broke my heart to be in a city and not goto dinner. We had microwaved cheeseburgers on the train and $2 cans of pop. I was so hungry I probably would've eaten the cardboard box I carried my $9.75 meal in.
I arrived back at my house at 10:oo pm after driving 1.5 hours from the station. I went to sleep and slept til 9:30 am, got up and ate Mike's fantastic chocolate chip pancakes, had a quiet family reading time, as suggested by Tommy, and then went back to sleep until 5pm. I got up and made potato soup and biscuits for dinner, cleaned that all up and got the kids ready for bed. Not a very productive day, but I feel so much better than I did all last week. I missed 4 1/2 days of work due to bronchitis and strepish throat. Oldest had it the week before and I thought I did to, but had a negative test. 2 trips to the doc last week. UGH!

Congrats to our State Champ!!

Our nephew took first at the state wrestling meet tonight!! Our family is a wrestling family and this was our first state win. His father and 2 uncles made it to state, but didn't win. (Not my husband--He wasn't a wrestler)
That is why when we got the 2 new nephews in the family this past few months, I put their weight as their first weigh in. HA HA

His Uncle Bobby has been an awesome coach and support to him!!
Congrats Sawyer!!

A Productive Weekend--with a bit of snow!

Saturday I got up and got laundry going and began organizing the kitchen cupboards. I needed to make a few logical changes and am pleased to have gotten that done. I now have a special shelf in a cupboard for my camera and it's case, etc. Mike was very helpful and kept up with my diet pill high very well. He hung a paper towel holder that I have had in the kitchen towel drawer for at least 18 months. He also hung Oldest's hooks, magazine rack and cork boards and moved her room around for her. She was thrilled!
We had to take the kids to bowling, but fortunately hardly anyone was there so it went really really quickly.
I finally undecorated the Christmas tree and got all of the snowmen and santas put away. Mike then took down the tree. I decided that we needed to clean out the closet where all of the Christmas and Halloween totes and the Christmas tree go. I had the kids drag out everything!
I then went in there and vacuumed all of the drywall dust and mouse poop. ----Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am completely terrified of all things mice. Their corpses, their traps, their poop, and most especially the live mice.---- I'm so proud of myself. No dead or live mouse sightings. YAY!!!! We are storing some boxes of stuff for Peggy and looked through a few photo albums. The kids loved seeing their dad in childhood photos. 1970's hair and collars!
While all of the totes were out, I decided that they should be gone through and condensed. Don't worry Peggy, I didn't touch your stuff!! I very easily start a project and get sidetracked into doing something else, but happily completed all of the projects I started. I had wanted to watch a movie with my honey, but he decided to watch SCI-FI/nerd tv, so I went to bed and read a great book.

Welcome To The World Justice!!

Justice Scott ******

February 9, 2009 @ 5:04am

8 lbs 13 0z--first weigh in

Mike's brother, Joe and his GF Tracy had a second son today. He is quite a love!! So cuddly and sweet. I just loved holding him and kissing his soft little head. I even got to change a poopy diaper. (I always seem to do that with babies in the hospital, don't I?)

Mike went out at about 2:15am to get their first son, Destry, at the hospital and brought him home with him. We were fortunate that our kids didn't have school today so Littlest and Middlest were spending the night with friends last night. Mike and Destry went to sleep in our bed and I went to Middlest's bed and got a couple hours of sleep. We were really excited, so we didn't sleep much. ;)

I had lots to do today including breakfast out with Middlest, Jena and her 2 kids, dental appts for Midd and Litt, and a haircut for Littlest. Destry joined us for all that fun stuff and some newborn shopping at Kohl's. We went then to the hospital to visit the newest member of our family. I realized at about 3:30 that I had forgotten to give the kids lunch, so they got a granola bar and I made a nice dinner of grilled chicken, green beans, and everyone's fave...Kraft mac and cheese. Everyone ate like champs. Wonder why??? I am such a WONDERFUL aunt and mother!!

During dinner I realized that Littlest had dance class in 15 minutes and my friend Jena called to see if we could watch her boy while she and her daughter did something with her kindergarten class. We raced to dance class and left oldest with the 2 extra boys and Middlest and a bunch of dirty dishes. It was the only day for parents to watch the dance class for the year.

Now the five of us are home alone, Destry went home with his daddy and I am downloading pics and realizing just how horrible I have been at blogging. I have 1,586 pics in a new folder. GEEZ!!