Melia's Birthday

Today my baby turned 5! I spent the day making lasungna (a labor of love) and birthday cake and wrapping presents. I took some cupcakes to Melia's class and all the kids were very excited about the big party tomorrow! After the girls got back from school, Sydney and I hid Melia's presents. (a long time family tradition) The hunt for presents is the highlight of a birthday! Appliances are a great place to hide! It took two times looking into the dishwasher for her to find her new Build-a-Bear game for Nintendo DS! lol

I didn't go crazy with the presents because she'll get plenty tomorrow. She was very greatful for what she did get, which is always nice.

When Chris came home we sat down to a nice family meal, the first time in.....um....lets see it's now 2009....well, anyway it's been a long time! I found a few decorations and we all had a nice dinner. We talked about our day and everyone had great manners! An extraordanary dinner experience, I can't get over it!

The girls played with Melia's presents while I got everything ready...

The 'few' decorations...lol

Sydney actually got some time to play around with her dad...look at that smile!

Then we had cake! Chocolate with chocolate frosting! yummm!

With star candles

And we topped it all off with a song. Instead of a picture I took a video clip...(love tecnology!)

A busy day

This morning Little B came to visit me while Lynda went to a Dr. appointment. Little B is talking a lot more. Lynda told me that Little B went to bed last night saying, "Aunt B house...bath. Aunt B house...bath." Needless to say that when I keep Little B during the day (when my kids are gone) I let her play in the bathtub. I think its great because it keeps her busy and she thinks it's great because, hey, what 2 yr old doesn't like to play in the tub? She comes out of the tub all wrinkly and I always threaten to eat her fingers! Cute kid!

After B left I headed out to the hot tub room to workout on my elliptical. I have a 30th birthday coming up in 8 weeks and I want to fit in my pants! I also want to have family pictures taken this spring and I want to look good. I have a closet full of nice clothes that I can't seem to squeeze all of my body into, and I will not buy bigger clothes...period.

Well, before I knew it, it was time for kids to be home. Sydney had a skate night for school. It's a reward for all the students that reached their reading goal for this nine weeks. This was the first time she reached her goal and she was very proud. So, I dropped her off, and Melia and I went to the grocery store to pick up some cupcakes that I will take to school tomorrow for her birthday. (I told Melia not to go to bed tonight so that she would stay four, but she told me that she would still turn five even if she stayed up all night. lol.) Sydney had basketball practice after skating so Chris had to pick up Sydney from the skating rink and take her to practice and then I pick her up from practice. ::phew:: I stay home to put Melia to bed because basketball practice is from 8:15 to 9:15 p.m. Needless to say that Sydney was exhausted when she went to bed and so was I! Drop them off, pick them up, take them here, take them there, and then put them to bed! Can anyone say, "Mom Taxi?" lol (Marsha, I don't know how you dedicate yourself to it all the time!) During the blurr of the day, Melia brought out one of her doll beds and Tater decided that she liked it very much....

She looks like a psycho dog! but we love her. Today she learned to jump up on the couch, which saves the aggravation of tyring to catch her (she jumps around A LOT!) and pull her onto the couch myself. One of her favorite things to play with is the eyeball off of her toy flea, which she has in her mouth in this picture...or maybe it's a pull string that turns on the light in her eyes?! LOL!

Then when I wanted to take more pictures of her, she started to lick my camera! She's gorgeous...

This has been a busy day, and it will be a very busy weekend. Tomorrow I cook birthday cake and lasagna! yum...

Natures Beauty

The girls were sooo excited that it had started to snow...Melia would have watched it all night!

We got all of about 2 inches, and out near town they only got a dusting. The kids were already out of school (yes, they would cancel school for this little bit of snow) so there won't be any make up days.

It really was quite pretty...

The snow was gone in two days. (yay!)

The sunset was so beautiful this evening....

I've been busy planning Melia's birthday party on Sat. All 14 children (or rather their parents) have R.S.V.P.ed! Wow! I've never had 100% turn out for a party before! It's going to be at a really cool place called Bouncin' Kids. They have a bunch of inflatable slides and jumpy things. A big bonus is they supply everything but the cake! ::phew:: Should be a great time! I'll LYK.

It's snowing....

OMG it's snowing here in western North Carolina!..... we might get a total of 3 inches by daybreak!

Times, They are are a'changin'!

A quick note... I now have to yell at Sydney (9) not because she is acting out or a bad kid but because she is listening to her ipod! You could say to her, "You're shoes smell like really bad garbage!" and she would dance around and say, "What!?" and so the conversation would go. Actually it could be quite funny....you could yell anything you want to....I love the whole growing up thing!!! She rolls her eyes when I sing the songs that she is listneing to. LOL! I am so uncool, which is so funny!

It's Darn Cold!

It is quite frankly COLD! the high today is 29 degrees and for NC that's cold! Last night it was single digits (low of 7) and almost froze our pipes and tonight is suppose to be colder. The only reason (I believe) that our pipes didn't freeze last night is because our bathroom faucet is leaky...all the time! for the past year we've meant to fix the dam thing but it never gets done. On top of it all, Melia has been home with a serious cold. We (Melia and I) have been snuggled up on the couch under MANY blankets all afternoon watching movies like "SpiderWick Chronicles" and "Night at the Museum". Then she got tired and fell asleep....




Poor dear, she should be feeling better soon. At least she doesn't go back to school until Wed. The Dr. said that it wasn't anything serious, just the common cold. Man I hate winter! Thank God everyday is just one day closer to spring!

Tater

My little Tater has found the coveted place in front of the heater. Usually Fluke sits there when it's cold but Tater has found that this is the place to be when Fluke isn't around....

My little darling is very good at peeing on the puppy pee pads but leaves crap all over! err! She's only 3 months old so I cut her some slack. :) I believe she thinks her name is 'Tater Gorgeous' (I tell her she's gorgeous all the time) but she does come to just plain Tater. She also thinks that she is as vicious as a doberman and gets really mad at fleas (no matter how I try to get rid of the fleas she always seems to have one that just won't quit). She seems to be growing (much to my dismay) and doesn't exactly fit the spot by my laptop anymore. She kept chasing/biting my fingers when I would type!

She is now more comfortable laying between my legs on the other side of my laptop (which is a perminate fixture to my lap)...looks comfy!

All-in-all she's one good pup!

Life in general

It's been awhile since I blogged so I'll catch you all up. Christmas was good, after all my shopping, money spending, boxing, wrapping, and placing the presents under the tree, the girls took all of seven (7) minuets to open all the gifts....wow. I got Sydney a wii and Melia got the baby that she had been wanting along with most all of everything else that they wanted.

Also on Christmas day we put our trampoline back together. The wind had blown the entire thing into the woods and bent up the frame pretty bad. We now have the trampoline securely staked down with rope and twisty stakes, like the ones you use to stake you dog in the yard. It's a good thing too because the wind really whips around here in the winter! Actually it whips pretty hard in the fall, winter and spring but not a lick in the summer....sux!

I finally got around to cleaning out Melia's room. Sydney has outgrown Barbies and Melia really wanted them all moved into her room. That meant a serious clean out because her room is about the size of a large walk-in closet. I didn't take any before pictures, just look at the after pictures and imagine stuff everywhere.

All-in-all I took out 3 bags of trash (little toys and crap that accumulates), a very large bag of stuffed animals and extra dolls, and a little tykes doll house. It took me four hours to go through all of her stuff, I even cleaned out her closet! Melia has not missed any of the things that I took out, mostly because of all the 'new' Barbie stuff. She was very pleased with her 'new' room.