Planning For His Future

Korbin has had a really difficult day. He got to talk to his daddy on the phone today and ever since then he started acting a little on the crazy, sad, and whiny side.

He's having a hard time falling asleep so I went to lay down with him for a few minutes. He heard my brother and sister in law playing video games in the living room and said that he wanted to play too. I told him that only grown ups were playing because kids needed to go to bed. Korbin said "but you're a kid and so are they." I asked him why I was a kid and he said "because you have a mom and dad! Remember? I met them!" It was as if all this time I'd been pretending to not have parents and he just discovered something new.

Then we had a conversation in which he informed me that he doesn't want to have kids ever, just dogs. And then he decided he would have cats too.

I asked him why he didn't want to have kids. He said "because they will act crazy!" I guess he doesn't want kids that are just like him!

He then went on to tell me that he would have one boy kid. That way whenever he felt like wrestling he would be able to!

He has a plan....

He Didn't Know Who I Was

I haven't seen the man in just over a year.

It's only been a year.

I haven't changed that much.

In fact the only thing different is my hair color is a bit darker. No big deal right. You'd think that someone who'd known me for 29 years would know who I was right?

We decided to surprise him at work. We showed up and he was gone. Go figure! Men! We got drinks and decided to go do some other errands. The man at the counter shouted "he just pulled in hold on a second".

We waited. I ran over to the door that he was going to come in. He walked in and shouted to the man at the counter "hey my apron is frozen!" I was about 6 foot from him and I replied "then throw it in the dryer!" He looked at me. He thought I was waiting on him to go by so I could get to the door. He said "I'm going this way and started to walk past.

I was amused. Shocked. I said "Dad!"

He looked puzzled! Then it was like you see a little light come on as he realized this his daughter was standing in front of him.

Then he said "you colored your hair!" Yeah like that's his excuse. It could be that he didn't know I was in town yet and thought I was in Missouri still.

My Dad didn't know who I was and I thought it was funny!

Freezing in Michigan

Just thought I'd let all three of my regular readers know that I might not be around much the next couple weeks.

I've been planning a trip to Michigan for about three months now. First I was going to head home for Thanksgiving. Instead I had a much better November when my husband came home for his two week visit!

So I decided that I would go ahead and go home for Christmas instead. Well that plan got shuffled around and I decided to wait until January. I wanted to come last week because it was my WAY older brothers birthday. Then I got my oil changed. Those jerks decided my tires sucks because, well, they did. They sucked so bad I had to get new ones because mine didn't meet state minimum requirements and I had to sign an "I Suck" acknowledgement stating that I knew they sucked and therefore I suck and if I crash it's my own damn fault.

I decided to get tires. They of course had to be ordered because no one carries my size! Grrrr! Then I got my tires put on and realized I am a complete moron and lost my damn debit card! I had to go to the bank, cancel the one I lost, order a new one that will take 7-10 days to arrive at my house in Missouri and THEN get a temporary ATM card until I get my new debit card!

I was pretty sure the stars were not lining up for this trip but I left anyhow. We drove almost 500 miles today to arrive safe and sound in about 8.5 hours. We only stopped two times which is a major accomplishment considering it was just me, two dogs and a five and seven year old! Woohoo! Both of our stops were during daylight hours.

I rock! Go ahead and tell me!

Did I mention it was 2 degrees in Missouri? And did I mention it's quite below zero here. As a matter of fact it currently says -15 and "feels like" -36.

When I said I was going home to visit I meant my hometown of Coldwater, MI. Not the boys hometown of Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Holy freezing my ass off in Michigan!

We Discovered the Center

First of all this girl and I decided we'd meet up with this family to go to this place.

We left an hour later than we planned....ok we left two hours later than we planned. Who's counting? This girl said they opened at 10am. They opened at 1. We got there at 1:15 thanks to me thinking I saw the route on the map on Brandy's iPhone sure I can remember how to get there how hard can it be so I said "nah let's just go with it"! (after my crappy navigator offered to program my navigation system)

We drove and we drove and we turned around a couple times. We attempted to find directions from my google map in my cell phone. That was super......not so much. Then we tried to program Maggie, my navigation system. I figured she would have learned to do the right thing after being tossed out last time but I guess not. She was so off on her GPS locating it wasn't even funny. She has us 212 miles to our destination but we were in Springfield!! It was actually less than 10. We found it and here's some of what we did.

Korbin built his own Arch and stood under it. I guess I was supposed to take a picture from the front not the side, oops. Thanks for pointing that out Damama!

The kids dug for dinosaur bones and actually found some! We hung out of a giant nose. That's me and Korbin the little bugger!

Korbin learned how to float!


Brandys favorite soldier can float too!


The kids hung out in some tornado's!

Korbin had the puppy in most of his pictures! He loves his stuffed dogs!

My little Tayton who couldn't stand to touch other kids or stand younger kids is here touching and helping Cassidy to make sure that she is safe! It was a huge moment for him!

We got to run in a giant hamster wheel! The boys kept running up the front side!

Amber stopped and the wheel kept going!

It was so much fun! In fact if I had one of these in the house I might just get off my butt and exercise! Maybe...

The boys did some work. They used pulleys to lift, pull and push weighted blocks.

They worked really well together!

(see the puppy)

Korbin did some reading and of course the puppy was nearby.

Then we go to the good stuff. I got felt up by a college guy named Chris. It was great but had nothing on Max!

This is the High Wire Bike from the bottom floor. You're supposed to rock back and forth and stuff. He's not falling.

Here was my turn after getting felt up by the college kid! I tried and I tried

and I could not get the bike to lean far enough to reach the wire with my hand.

I had a good time trying but I used muscles I never thought I'd use riding a bike. Shifting your

weight against the 250 pound counter weight is tough.And more bad pictures from my cell phone.

Seriously Someone Tell Me Why

Why? Does this go back to the fishing pole tenth anniversary thing?

And who knew that a five year old boy could fit into a tiny "up to 25 pound" dog carrier? Cassidy and Korbin of course!

I hate Blogger!

Now that I've said that my whole blog is probably gonna disappear and I'll lose everything I've ever posted. Not that it matters because the first 150 pictures ever to be seen on my blog are now GONE!

That's right, gone forever. Stupid Picasa web albums said that I didnt have room for my Relay For Life album that I needed to upload for my friend who has been waiting to see the 150 pictures that were taken with my Camera last Relay. I thought I'd be nice and upload them to picasa so that she could get them all at one time instead of trying to send them by email handfulls at a time.

I decided to go ahead and delete an album cause I didn't need to have it on Picasa. I started to delete pictures large groups a time. Then I caught a glimpse of the "warning deleting these items can not be reversed". It was followed with "these pictures will no longer appear on your blog".

I thought it was just your normal "do you really want to do this" warning. I didn't realize that Picasa had jack to do with my damn blog. Stupid stupid stupid blogger!

I'm so mad!

Just thought you should know this.

Today Was A Sad Day

Today we took our good friends hubby back to the airport so he could return to duty in Iraq after his 18 days of R&R. We were supposed to be leaving at 6:30am to make the drive. It was just over 2 hours and I knew we'd be pushing it on their timeline but I went with it because, well it wasn't my decision to make.

I DO NOT LOVE MORNINGS!

I hope that's clear. But I will do pretty much everything for these two girls I spend most days with. She wanted me to go along and that was okay with me. I set my 3 alarm clocks, because as I said before mornings aren't my best friend. I was determined not to let my friend down by over sleeping and making her and her two girls through the day on their own.

My first alarm went off and I popped up out of bed and headed off to brush my teeth and get ready. The two blonde boys were in my room because we had a rough night. I didn't even flinch when the second alarm sounded. I turned it off and got dressed before waking the boys. The third alarm went off and I would normally be smashing it into wall by this point but I was proud to be up and ready to get the boys up. I woke them up, had them dressed and ready to go by 6:20am.

We sat downstairs waiting for our friends to pick us up with jackets on and shoes tied and bags in our laps. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. I tried to text message the friend. I sent her some IM's and tried to call her cell phone. No answers. It was 7am before I decided to call her house phone and risk waking up her mother who lives with her to find out what was going on.

Now we are a group of 3 girlfriends who are all in this damn deployment boat together and we do everything together. This particular friend is "the responsible one". The other girl and I are the often late and always impulsive ones.

Ok back to the story, I called the house phone and the mom answers. I asked her if my friend was still home because I thought maybe she decided to brave this horrible day on her own in bad judgement (I can say that because it was a bad choice two months ago when I made that bad choice). The mom tells me that the van is still there so they haven't left. She asked me if she should wake her up. I explain that we were supposed to be leaving a half hour ago so she woke up my friend who had "over slept".

They jumped up rushed around then they decided to call and switch his flight. They got it moved back an hour and a half and I quote "we'll be there to get you guys in a little bit". This meant no going back to sleep for me. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Around 830-845am they showed up to get us. (I sooo could have gotten a good hours sleep in!) It was around 9 by the time we finally got on the road to St Louis.

The soldier had to call to re-reschedule his flight because we were still not going to make it on time. I wish I had been that smart when my soldier had to go back after R&R to get a couple extra hours! Brilliant! Next time tell your friend who doesn't love mornings to go ahead and sleep another, okay?

Good!

I'm glad I got to go with and be supportive of my friend her family and keep them moving to make the day go by smoothly!

The pictures from our afternoon at the The St Louis Science Center tomorrow!

**I chose not to give the names of my friend in the post because I don't want to make her look bad or anything, hehehe!**

**It's not my fault if you click on the linky name thingys right? LMAO**

Let Me Tell You A Little Story

Part I:

Let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time there was this Mom who had two bratty naughty little blond boys that insisted on making their Mom crazy. One night the mom read the boys a very long book (a Spiderwick mini book, LOVED IT) and tucked them into bed in their very own loft beds complete with rope lights. It was around 9pm that the boys were kissed, hugged and tucked into bed with threats on their life if they were caught out of bed sweet words of love and happiness.

Around 11pm the Mom of these two rotten little boys decides to go to bed since it was going to be an early morning. When she rounded the corner to head up the stairs she heard it! The sound was enough to make the mom want to jump out the window except that she was still on the first floor so there was no point.

The lights were on at the top of the stairs in the first little blonde boys room. They were in there. Both of them. Laughing. The sound that the mom had hoped to hear was far from laughter with the lights on! The mom tip-toed into the room to catch them in the act before they threw themselves onto the lump of blankets and pretended to be sleeping!

The oldest boy said to the little boy "Korbin get out of my room and turn my light back off". Like the mom was going to believe that tale! This mom was crafty though. No spankings and yelling this time. No demanding they get back in bed. Not.this.time! Too easy!

She ordered the boys into her room and placed them each in a time out area to stand. The mom went ahead with her bedtime routine of brushing her teeth, washing her face and taking her medication. She probably needs a higher dose! The mom climbed into bed and was going to send her hubby, the daddy of previously mentioned naughty little blonde boys, an email. When suddenly the tables had turned.

One little blonde boys starts to beg the mom to let him please go to his bed. By this time they had been standing there for maybe 5 minutes. "Mom can we please go to bed now?" says one. "I'm so tired mommy", says another!

The mom typed a real fast email and then turned the volume way up on her phone and started to play bejewelled as she told the boys "you're the ones who didn't want to sleep so I'm letting you stay up". Cruel? So be it! Funny.....I think so!

Then I the mom turned off the light and pretended like she was going to go to sleep. Little blonde boys did not love that one bit! The mom felt as though her point was made so she let the little boys go to bed.

That mom won! This time......... Maybe she'll get a night or two without protest at bedtime.......maybe.

Part II coming soon.......

So Much For That Plan

I have always had to kid proof my house because I have two of the grabby-hand-having-est kids of all time! They have always been into everything! Most traditional kid proofing only worked until they were mobile then I was screwed. The boys were masters at figuring out child locks and helping our adult visitors figure them out as well.

Lately I just try to hide the things they shouldn't have and go on about my business. Until today. I went to get something off the top of the fridge and found that the boys also like my hiding spot. They had stashed a couple of "least likely to share" toys and some candy on top of the fridge.

Now what?

Sunshine and Lemonade: Weekend Winners: Greatest Hits

Sunshine and Lemonade: Weekend Winners: Greatest Hits

This is the giveaway of all giveaways! Seriously she's giving away tons of stuff to this weeks winner. I think she had too much eggnog? Or she's just super generous. Either way check it out. You have until Friday, January 9th to enter!

But if you win because I sent you over you have to let me pick one item from you winnings.....sounds fair to me!

Did I Really Hear That?

***Please note that what you're about to read was not said about or to me he was just chatting to himself and I overheard and here's what happened!***

I heard Tayton say something but I knew I must be mistaken. He was standing in the laundry room doorway right off of the living room when he said it. I was shocked, confused and even speechless for a minute.





I called him over to me. I said "what did you just say?" He laughed and said "I was just being funny mom".





I asked him to say it again and in his best fake deep voice my 7 year old said:





"Hey you sexy lady!"





I tried not to laugh as I explained that it's not really appropriate for a 7 yr old to run around saying......

Tayton's Question of the Day

Tayton just asked:

"Mom can people who have been married for ten years have a fishing pole hung on any wall in their house and not just the bathroom walls?"

I'm not sure what this means. I believe he wants to hang up his first fishing pole in his bedroom. He says Brandy had one hanging in her bathroom two years ago when we met her. We have no fishing poles hung anywhere in our house. Strange.

I'm really disappointed because I thought the ten year anniversary brought more than a fishing pole hung on my walls....

Korbin is so Korbin

Korbin is so overdramatic. He should take up acting!

Sunshine and Lemonade: Weekend Winners: Games people play

Every week Kat gives great stuff away. The only reason I'm telling you is because I want an extra entry I am a sharer of good things!

Sunshine and Lemonade: Weekend Winners: Games people play

It Came, It Went, Let's Get On With the New Year!

Two little blond boys would not go to sleep last night. Finally around 10:30 I was walking up the stairs and I got a phone call. I answered it and guess who it was? Santa. He was mad as can be! I had to beg him not to pass up our house because of the boys. I stood in the hallway outside their rooms and talked and begged and pleaded and even faked shed a few tears. He eventually agreed to give them a second chance and would be back in about thirty minutes but that was the longest he could hold off.





They went right to sleep.


I was shocked to see that one of Santa's cookies was missing. I forgot that I have a ginormous dog hanging out for a few days and things need to be up a little higher out of her reach. At least she was generous enough to leave the other two for Santa. Who by the way didn't eat them. I guess I missed the verse that said "he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when the dog eats off that plate". Who could blame him really?





We started out hour morning at 7am with a call from Iraq! Unfortunately I was still very tired because I was up till about 2. He insisted I wake the boys up so I did. They were very happy to hear from Daddy first thing in the morning. He talked to Tayton when they walked down the stairs to find the Christmas tree surrounded by presents from Santa. We finished talking to Kirke and then they started in on the presents.


They made out very well this year. They didn't get 100 hot wheels cars or 120 Pokemon figures like last year, individually wrapped. I guess those elves wised up this year! There was a shortage of elves as well considering last year we had the two main elves as well as two temporary elder elves aka grandparents here to help out and this year due to cut backs in the company due to the economic slump there was only one lone elf. The cutest one of course!



Here are some pictures of our day:

They had lots to open and Tayton was in a lot bigger rush than Korbin who still wanted to play in between gifts!

My Pokemon Freak got his share of Pokemon books, cards, games and even his own battledome!

**note to consumers: do not buy this it is junk and won't stay together!**

As always Korbin had to act goofy!

After the presents were opened Kirke got online so here he is trying to enjoy a bit of Christmas with us! We missed you so much love!

This is how we wrapped up the day. The boys on their new laptops and me on my very jealous, tempermental PC that displayed its jealousy of me working on the boys XO's for so long! Don't worry little laptop, you're the one for me!

I hope your day was great too and lets get on with this ending this year and moving on to the last part of this damn deployment, I'm ready to have my soldier home!

He Doesn't Want Me

I was chatting with Kirke's cousin Kelli today on the computer. She told me the greatest news! She said that her boyfriend asked her to marry him last night! Woohoo! Congratulations Kelli!

So anyhow I wanted to make little video with the boys telling her how happy they were for her. I told them we had to tell her congratulations and then I said to Korbin "Your Daddy's cousin Kelli is getting married!" then I hit record. I did not expect this reaction.....

Don't worry Kirke still wants to be with me......as far as I know!

Merry Christmas!

What Do You Think?

I talked to my little sister today. She got my Christmas card from us today and wanted to let me know how much she liked it. But she leaked it to me that some of our other family members were a little less impressed with the photo I chose.

If you've ever been to my blog before you know we are goofing off bunch of people in this house. We are silly and love to laugh. So when I downloaded this picture back in June I knew it had to be our Christmas card for this year. It is truly "us".

(The caption reads "Our Family at it's Best is wishing yours the very best this holiday season! Love the Best Family")

What do you think? Not fancy enough for Christmas?

My little sister did remind that family member of my teenage mooning phase and how lucky they were that I was sticking out my tongue and not mooning them! Thanks Sabrina for standing up for me! Love ya Sis!

I Really Do That

I'm a crazy mom. I do strange things. In fact many of my posts begin with "we do strange things in this house". But I think I need a little help, some support to help stop one of my newest and worst habbits of all time.

I've always been a worrier. When I go to bed every night since the boys were born I make sure and check in on them. I always have touch them to make sure they are breathing. I put my hand on their little chest and wait to feel that comforting rise and fall of as they dream their little dreams.

Well now the boys have loft beds. They love their loft beds and so do I....most of the time. Except when I need to check on them at night. I can't reach them most of the time because they end up at the farthest corner of their full sized beds.

That means either I assume their sleeping or I crawl up into their beds just to make sure they're breathing. Well I'm way too creative for that. My latest method of checking on them is to throw toys at them until I get a reaction so I know they're alive! Yep I sure do. I toss stuffed animals at them as they sleep until the roll over, swat away a toy that's landed on them, groan or eventually one day they'll wake up and whip it back at my head and tell me to leave them alone.

Until then.........DUCK!!

My First WW....Un-Freakin-Believable

I've never done the whole "Wordful Wednesday" hosted by Angie at



And I certainly am not capable of a "wordless Wednesday". When I was downloading pictures from my memory card today and I found this. Wait wait wait let me explain first.



We are dog and bunny sitting for Amber because she is out of town enjoying her R&R with her soldier (if you know what I mean)! So I have her chocolate lab and her gigantic bunny. The boys are having fun with the dog and could care less about the rabbit. They love my camera and ran around taking pictures of the dog.

Instead of yelling or trying to solve this problem they took a picture!




Thanks boys! Way to help out!



They did tell me right after she peed on the floor that she had done it, at least they did that! Darn dog! Darn kids! Darn messy laundry room!

Lack of Self Control

Today I was going out of my mind trying to keep myself from letting the boys open a present. The problem is that we got one off of eBay and then we won another one. The first one came a couple days ago and I've been fiddling with it but you really have to have two to get the full effect of this little machine. Let me just show you what I'm talking about. But you must not tell the children! Got it? Ok I trust you.

The screen can turn and fold flat and it has buttons so it can be used for games and stuff just like a hand held video game system.

As the second one arrived today I was bursting at the seams to let them have their XO's to start learning to use them and access the gazillion trillion oodles of information available to their little minds through using this little tiny laptop. It's totally kid safe and runs off the Linux operating system. I've successfully checked my email and signed onto two of the educational websites we use.

I knew I had no self control. I decided to reach out to my support group so I tweeted my little heart out. Many of my twitter friends tried to help keep me from giving them the best gifts this year early. But one friend, DamamaT went above and beyond and sent me this:



Here is my response:




I was good, I didn't let them have them....yet. And in my defense this isn't my fault. My parents were horrible about waiting until Christmas morning. They would let us open one here and there before Christmas and then on Christmas morning they'd wake us up at ungodly hours of the night (sometimes with cups of cold water tossed on our heads) such as 2am just to open gifts. Therefore, its their fault not mine so blame them....he he! Love ya mom and dad!