Happy Thanksgiving...

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy thanksgiving. We are about to have our turkey sandwiches to tide us over until the big dinner at Aunt Barb/Patty's house. We are looking forward to getting together with family.

I hope everyone has a very blessed day. Love to all.

Let's see if this will work...

I am trying to link my facebook profile to my blog and then perhaps I will update my blog more often.

Giving this a try.....

I Just Received...

The sweetest note from Marie. I have to type it here.

Dear Mommy I love and you are the best mommy ever and you are my best friend ever and I am so happy that you have me in my activities like horseback and young chefs academy and swimming and you make my days at school fun and you are fun with me.

Does that not just melt your heart! Well we are here in Hutto and have been in Texas now for a little over a year. We are settling, but don't quite feel settled. We are just renting a house which is not a place we want to stay for very long. We have realized that now is the time for us to buy a house with all the houses selling for very cheap, but just don't know which little city we want to settle in. There are pros and cons every where and while it would be nice to stay in Hutto the houses here are over priced and not very well built. We would love to have an old house, but that would mean we would have to live in Taylor and we are not sure if we want to drive the 10 miles to Hutto each day for work. If however we decide on Taylor we can get a very old house with big trees and get to do some work on it and make it our own. We just can't decide.

Marie is doing wonderful in school. She loves second grade. I asked her what her favorite things to do at school where and she said art class and homework. I am still working at her school which is so wonderful. I can dry the tears when she gets upset and be involved with her education. I had an opportunity to move to district, but turned it down. I would have to work during the summer and I would obviously not be at her school. I asked Marie what she would think and she does not want me to leave. Another opportunity will come up when she is older.

Marie is still in horseback riding and is now taking cooking classes. She goes to a place called Young Chef's Academy in Round Rock. She loves cooking and is always asking to do stuff here at home. We also still have her in swimming classes. Some of you knew that before the beginning of this year Marie did not like to put her head under water. She now can swim and is doing a really good job. We drive into Austin to a place called Emler swim and we just love it there. I don't think I could ask for a better place. We now cannot get her out of the water. We would really like to find a place that has enough land for a pool. Even if it is an above ground pool I would really like for us to have one.

Well I must close for now. LSU is not doing well so I need to walk away from the TV. Love to all.

Over a year and about time...

I guess since it has been over a year that I have posted I should at least say Hi! I don't think I have any readers left, but perhaps I will gain some new ones. Tomorrow at work I should have a lot of time to blog so I will update on the goings on with our family. They are dismissing the kiddos early for the hurricane, but the employees have to stay. Bummer!

Dance Recital

This will be a very short note this evening. It is past midnight and I still have the kitchen and Marie's art area to clean before I can go to bed.

The recital was great. Marie did a wonderful job. I wished everyone could have been there to see her dance. She really gets better every year. It was so sad for me to think that this is the last year she will dance here in Norman. You will see she was a little sad also in the pictures with the studio owner and then with her teacher. Rockie, the studio owner, has been such a wonderful teacher to Marie during the three years we have been here. She told Marie that it was like seeing one of her seniors graduate having to say goodbye to Marie. So here are a bunch of pictures for all to see.

Love to all.

Talent Show!

Hello All...I just wanted to write a brief update on what is going on around here. Some of you already know the stress we have been enduring about the talent show, but for those of you who do not here is the story.

Marie decided she wanted to be in the talent show. She wanted to do her dance from Dallas Cowboy camp this past summer. Of course she does not remember most of the dance. I agree to learn it myself and then teach it to her. Well that lasted about a weekend. I learned the dance, but she was not in any mood to learn. She we gave that up and decided to learn a song. The song we picked out was Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals. The song can be seen at the beginning of the movie Adventures in Babysitting. Anyway so we go on a trek to learn this song in the three days before tryouts. Then the night before tryouts she decides that she does not want to tryout. Then the day of tryouts we go back and forth about wanting to and not wanting to tryout. By lunch time I have decided that she must try out.

Now let me give everyone reading this my reasons behind forcing her to tryout. At this point she is taking the easy way out. She pretty much knows the song and gets to try out using the song with the words. She is trying out in front of teachers that she already knows and feels comfortable with. So after some fighting she relents and decides what is really going to happen if she just tries. I also have to remind her that she might not even get asked to be in the talent show. You see there were about 60 people or so trying out and they try to only have about 35-40. So what really are her chances.

So she tries out. She does a great job and we move on. I know as a mother I should be saying I really hope she gets into the talent show, but deep down I just hope we can use this audition as a learning experience and move on and not have to go through this again. She has by this point informed me that even if she gets in she is not going to do the Talent Show. I agree because honestly I don't think she will get in. This is actually the first year they have even let kids in kindergarten try out.

Well guess what name is on the list?! She is the only person in kindergarten asked to be in the talent show. Everyone wants her to be in the show so I give it my best shot to convince her to be in it. I was fighting a loosing battle so I decide to have the girls at her gym work on her. I have to agree to take her, Talia, and Jasmine to lunch for a girls afternoon. Talia and Jasmine are two of her friends that are in 4th grade and both got into the talent show. I am good friends with both of their mothers.

So we have decided to be in the talent show and I thought things would settle down. Guess who was wrong?! She did not want to practice so again we went back and forth. It would have been easier at this point to just pull her out, but by now she wanted to be in the show.

Yesterday I was so proud of her. Other than having a break down in the morning because she did not want to tuck her shirt in we had a great morning. I was working at the school so I gave her a kiss and left her in her classroom. We were all packed into the cafeteria for the talent show. I was told that is was expected to run 2 1/2 hours and Marie was close to the end. I was of course worried about how the audience was going to be by the time she got up to perform.

They were great and she was great. She had a lot of support from all the kids in the school. She remembered the words and even when she messed up she just got back into the song and kept going. I don't think I breathed the entire time she was on stage and I honestly almost started crying. All the stress and problems that being in this talent show had caused literally melted away when I saw her up there. At no moment during her performance did she look nervous. She was just up there singing to her entire school and parents! I believe she was very proud of herself also.

So the day went along and I was stuck up in middle school with the wild kids for the day. I actually did not have any classes, but I had visitors stay with me during the elective times. During the second elective they called me down because Marie had flowers delivered. Luckily I had her favorite 8th grader with me and he and I went down to deliver her the flowers. Her daddy sent her some beautiful flowers. She was so happy to get them and even happier that Mr. JV brought them to her.

So we left school and headed out to her dance recital dress rehearsal. That went great also!

Well I must close now and add some pictures of our day. This last picture with the curly hair is from today. We are getting ready for the dance recital which will be at 7pm. I will attempt to blog about that tomorrow, but it might not happen for a few days. We have an open house tomorrow so I am taking her to see Shrek the Third in the theater while the open house is going on. Please pray that the house goes under contract soon. We are ready to get started on our move to Texas.

Love to all.

Question: Can you ever really finish the laundry?

Answer...No because there is always something hidden. Well Mother's day has got much better as the sun came up. Marie was awake watching me when I opened up my eyes. She was ready for me to open my other mother's day present. So I did. I got some really nice pairs of earrings. They were buy 1 get 1 free. Such a bargain shopper. We decided to go out for breakfast since she was feeling better. So off to Golden Corral for the all you can eat breakfast buffet.

Well it started off ok. We were eating and enjoying each others company. Then the itching started and I discovered that the rash was spreading. It was then on her cheek and neck. The rest of the meal was not as nice as the beginning because we rushed to finish so we could get home and get a bath and some more lotion on.

So we got home and put Roman out back for a little while. Today was the first day in I can't even tell you how long that it has not rained so we all went out back to pull a few weeds before Marie got in the shower. Well I decided to wash off the back porch while we were out there. With all the rain Roman has been using it as his potty. So I pulled the hose out and Marie got it in her mind that she wanted to get wet. So I sprayed her down and she ran around a little bit. It was nice to be outside and having a fun time while I sun was out. She kept screaming that she was having more fun that she had at her birthday party.

Note to self...skip all the planning, snowcone machine, slip and slide etc. and just pull out water hose.

So she got in the shower while I got to work cleaning the house. By the way by this time the rash has spread to her legs. I guess after work tomorrow we will be headed to the doctor.

I spent the rest of the day picking up and putting away and getting the house ready for an open house this Tuesday and then Sunday. I am really ready for the house to be sold. I know that in the right timing it will sell, but it is getting really stressful keeping this house up and running with all the stuff going on. I would just like for it to go under contract so that I can stop stressing over every last detail.

Anyway so I have been working on the dreaded laundry. I will honestly say that I never quite finish the laundry in one day. I don't know how two people can go through so many clothes, but it happens. There always seems to be something that needs cleaning. So I made it my goal today to get the laundry washed, dried, and at least folded. I was not sure if I would get it put away, but that can wait until tomorrow. So now at 11:55 pm I have fallen short of my goal. The last load is in the washer with one in the dryer. If I had not decided to wash my sheets tonight then I would be finishing up, but after having Marie in my bed last night I decided I wanted clean sheets.

So I was all proud of myself even putting the clothes off my back in the washer before running through the house to jump in the shower. I wanted everything to be washed. So I took my shower and got into some nice clean jammies. Then I went to put my bed back in order and needed to get my comforter that was still in the bathroom. You will never guess what was in the tub under the comforter?! The pants Marie was wearing last night when she had her accident.

So no you can never finish the laundry. It is seriously impossible.

Have a happy mother's day one and all. I am off to dry my hair. I am working in Kindergarten tomorrow so please pray for me. I NEVER agree to work in the lower grades unless they are desperate. Well they were desperate.

Oh and don't even begin to ask me what I found out is going on at Disney while we are there....Ugh....Yeah the washer just finished. Lets see if my towels are dry...Ahhhh the life....

Love to all....

And and Happy Mother's Day to You....

If you check the time of this post you will discover that we are in the wee hours of the morning. I was all set to head to bed after a pretty relaxing day...minus a little stress...stuff happens and now I am not tired so I will post instead.


So Marie spent most of the day over at a friends house which was really nice. I had the day to myself! She came back and insisted on me opening one of my mother's day presents because she wanted me to wear it for mother's day. While she was in my lap opening the package up for me I noticed her arms. Well they are covered in a rash of sorts. So I freak out and end up calling her doctors office. They believe it is only hives (from what we cannot figure out) so we went off to Wal-Mart to get some cream and Benadryl. So I creamed her up and gave her some medicine and some ice packs to put on her arms and put her in my bed with a movie. So she falls asleep and I keep working on her teachers end of the year gifts. In case anyone wants to know I made them quilts with all the kids names in a different square. Thankfully they are finished. So I spent a little time reading my new trash magazine (US weekly) and decided I would finish it up in my bed.

So I go to move her from my bed and when I go to pick her up I notice that something is wet. Now mind you we have not had any accidents since we got out of the pull ups at least two years ago. I guess the mixture of the hives making her feel bad and the medicine made her have an accident. So I wake her up and she does not believe me that she is wet and goes potty and then I have to make her change out of her wet clothes. So we do this, I check the arms, and put her back to bed with a little more medicine. Then I move on to my bed. She had to be sleeping with MY satin blanket under her. So this dry clean only queen size blanket had to be wet down and is now hanging to dry. To make matters worse and a little more gross when I wet the blanket down I saw into the center and there are some nasty dark looking stuff in the filler. I think now is the time for someone to purchase me a new satin blanket. So then I have to take my comforter and try to wet it down and get it a little clean. Luckily my satin blanket absorbed most of the wetness. So now I will be heading to bed in a little while with just a sheet because I put most of my other favorite blankets in storage. If I was a bad mom I would take her satin blanket and make her sleep with something else, but I do feel bad for her because of the rash.

So here we are a little over an hour into mother's day and I already have this?! Oh boy what does the rest of the day have in store for me?! I guess everyone will have to wait to find out....

Love to all...

Jamie Needs a Break!!

Ok I am in serious need of a break so I will type out my frustrations! It has been 24 days since my last message and that is because honestly I do not think I have stopped since then.

First and best news of all I have a nephew named Edward William. He was born on Good Friday, April 6th. He was 7 pounds 12 ounces. My sister went through so much to bring this little boy into the world, but what an angel he is! Marie and I got down there on Thursday. They had already been to the hospital early that morning after having a night of labor. Unfortunately they did not have a very nice or caring nurse and she sent them home. We spent Thursday evening walking my sister as I like to put it around the blocks. We had pizza and went to bed. I was positive that they would have me up in the middle of the night rushing to the hospital. The next morning after a horrible night for them they went back to the hospital.

An angel seemed to be on duty that morning because they were admitted to the hospital. Marie and I went up to the hospital around lunch time and she was still in labor and in a lot of pain. She got the epidural and was finally resting a little. Baby Eddie however was doing something with his cord because every time Carmen changed positions Eddie's heart rate dropped dramatically. A cesarean was finally done and little Eddie made his way into the world.

How did Marie respond to this little one you may be asking?! Not so good in the beginning, but by Sunday she seemed to have warmed up to him. You see her Kiki and Uncle Eddie are her two favorite people next to JJ and I and for once she did not have their undivided attention. That was a lot for a 6 year old to understand. Plus with the other stuff that as a reader you know about it was a VERY difficult trip.

We stayed until Monday and got to see Eddie come home from the hospital and then we made our way back here to Norman to get back to our normal life.

Normal life?! Ha!!!! Today is the half way point of the thing that is going on in my life. IS IT ONLY HALF WAY OVER?! From the way I feel it has gone on for months and months and months. We did great in the beginning, but now OH MY GOODNESS!! Everything is a challenge. Just getting her up in the morning is like pulling teeth. I had to use every ounce of my strength during homework tonight not to jump off the deep end. I finally did loose it when she was working on her sight words and let me preface by saying WE KNOW our sight words. She looked at the word "into" and said she had never seen it before. Mind you not five minutes earlier she had read it in her book. Out of the 30 or so sight words she must know by the middle of next month she was able to say 3 of them. 3 OF THEM!!! At one point not so far in the past we knew them all. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Perhaps I expect too much out of her, but I don't want an argument after every request. I also don't want to be yelled at. BY NO MEANS should I be yelled at. This has been happening when I get her in the car to go home from school. I handle it by telling her she does not yell at me, telling her why it is not ok to yell at me, and then telling her that we will not talk until she can calm down. I get a quick I'm sorry which I tell her I am tired of hearing that she is sorry and that she needs to prove it and then she pouts. By the way the last thing I need to hear is how this is a thing and that she will out grow it. I know she will out grow it and I know I did the same thing, BUT it is driving me CRAZY!

Thank goodness Grey's Anatomy is on tonight. If she will get in bed and stay in bed before 8:00 I will be able to watch it without interruptions. Record it you might say...well it conflicts with CSI and I am recording that because it is not shown again. Grey's Anatomy on the other hand repeats and will be recorded tomorrow night, but I am working tomorrow and some of the middle school studentstalk with me about the show and I don't want to hear about something I have not watched.

And another thing....I bring this on myself, but we need the money. I am working SO many days. It is like a full time job, but I am paid next to nothing. If I did not love the kids and the school it would not be worth all the headaches. But I do love the kids and the school. Also right now I am about the only substitute that is available to work. Plus I have this little feeling of guilt if a teacher asks for me by name I always take the job. If they take the time to ask for me then the least I can do is take their place for the day. I guess I am doing something right because I keep getting more jobs!

Well it is getting late...I have not eaten dinner...Marie is still up...Grey's starts in less than a half hour. Love to all.