Mini Puzzle Master

After Allie's bath last night, we snuggled in my bed to warm up. While there she noticed my sudoku book and wanted to write numbers. I told her which number went in the specific square, and she wrote it in. It was so cute. She loves writing numbers...


Then she wanted me to take a picture of her "sleeping"...

So fun, it makes two days ago an almost distant memory...

Random Photo(s) #2

This has been floating around on my desktop for months. Pete is such a goofball. He found Allie's tiara (a souvenir from me when I visited my Grandmother in July in Arizona) and decided it suited him. Amazingly, he allowed me to photograph him wearing this. The blackmail pictures just keep piling up...


ps- Allie saw this post and is outraged that Pete is wearing her tiara. She keeps telling me to "get these out of here! ok!?".

I'd Like to Thank All the Little People Who Made This Possible...

This is my finest hour. 3/5 of my kids have been crying today because I am a M.O.M. (mean old mom- as my dad would say... nice, huh?). Matt was despondent because I would not let him get Star Wars III at the library today (it's pg-13). He also stated that if I would not let him watch it, he would not do his school work. I love it when my children try to manipulate me.

We then went to Sam and Tom's school book fair where they seem to sell more toys and chotchkies than books. When Tom wanted toys instead of books, I was mean enough to say "no". He had an uber-melt down which involved me walking out of the building with him kicking and screaming. He even took off his boots and threw them at me when we were in the car (could it be the Arab in him?).

I then came home and had Allie screaming at me because I would not allow her to make mini cupcakes for dinner. Doesn't she know that I have a healthful hot dog dinner to serve instead?

There's nothing like children to reduce your self confidence to zero. I packed my kids fun lunches in their lunch bags for our errands today, we went to the library and made a special trip to see Sam at school (we actually wound up meeting him outside because of Tom's lovely display). I'm making them hot dogs for dinner for heaven's sake... the all beef kind.... because they llooooove them. This was supposed to be a good day!!!!

Argh. So today I win the "Mother of the Year" award. I must be the best mom ever.

I have to say the only thing that made me feel better is when I went online for the "mother of the year" clip art, it showed Sharon Osbourne winning a "celebrity mother of the year" award for paying for her childrens' rehab out of her own pocket. I suppose I haven't hit rock bottom yet.

Random Photo #1

Prepare for the random photos. It's filler really... just some odd, random photos that have been floating on my desktop that I've been meaning to upload.

Our whole family got really sick about a month ago. I think it was the swine flu although they did not test for it. Pete had walking pneumonia though and the doctor thought it was caused by the swine flu. It was such a pathetic sight that I had to take a picture, I like to document the good, the bad, the ugly... but mostly the ugly. Here's the "sicky room".....


The kids were sad, but the dog was happy. She's never had so much snuggle time in her life. Allie got sick about a day later. =(

Really, She's Three?

Allie always asks me to write out words for her. She is constantly making cards for her friends, drawings for her dad, and letters to her Lola. One day she asked me to write out the words "NO" and "YES". I then noticed she had drawn corresponding happy and sad people. She then informed me that she was going to hang her paper on her door to inform people whether or not they could enter her room.

She's three. Pete, my twelve year-old does not even do that. She must have seen it on tv or something... that or it's the "girl" coming through...

My Little Halloweenies...

We made it. We survived Halloween. The kids had all day to stew and get excited about going out on Saturday. I think it's tougher when Halloween is not on a school night. For one, they have parties and parades at school, and then we have to go through the excitement again the next day. They were practically bouncing off the walls when it came time to go out. Allie was so excited about Halloween that she wore her costume for two whole days prior to Halloween (she was a dragon)...

Our costumes this year were quite an eclectic mix. Pete was a newspaper monster, Matt was a sith lord called "Darth Blind Beard", Sam was Spiderman with a Darth Vader cape and belt. Tommy is a clown with a Darth Vader mask and a wizard's hat. Here's the gang (plus two friends) this year...

For the first time, the kids split up for a bit. We all trick-or-treated together over to Pete's friend's house where he and his other friend went out with the big kids. Then we picked up one of Matt's friends along the way, swung back to our house, dropped off the little guys and then went out a bit more with Matt and his two friends. It seemed to work ok and it was nice to have the gang together for a bit before they went their own way.

The weather was cold and it rained for a bit, but did improve as the evening went on. I was surprised that our pumpkins weren't smashed (we always leave them out... I don't care if they get smashed after Halloween, just not before). I did notice however that our cranky neighbor's mailbox was destroyed (I swear it wasn't me!). Quite uneventful all in all.

Now our biggest challenge is getting rid of the candy without our kids getting too sick. They are right now at the table trading them like commodities. It's fun to listen in. Surprisingly, the candy that no one likes are snickers, milky ways, and three musketeers. Peanut butter cups, and m&ms are middle tiered, and nerds, kit kats, nestle's crunch, sour patch, mike and ikes, and skittles are popular. REALLY!?!?!? Mike and Ike's are better than snickers!?!?!? There is something wrong with my kids.

To NaBloPoMo or Not to NaBloPoMo... That is the Question.

I can't believe I'm even contemplating doing this again, but I suppose I like to drive myself crazy... so it's on. This means more weather reports, random photos, and failblog favorite picks. It's amazing how uninteresting my life is unless you find humor in anecdotes that describe my kids quirks... for example Tommy today was frustrated that the imaginary food he cooked did not taste as good as he had hoped... but I digress. I should probably save that for a separate post, thin them out a bit.

I might again be posting on day seven how there is no way I can ever complete this, I suppose there is only one way to tell....