Random . . . .and not so random . . . thoughts

I sent my oldest child off to Space Camp today for the next 3 days. I'm a little worried. He's never been this far away from us for this long without a family member close by. I hope he remembers to shower, put on deodorant every morning, and brush his teeth. And I hope he comes home with everything I sent with him.

I'm a worry wort.

I saw the Dr. today to discuss my lab results. Everything looks pretty good. I don't have diabetes like I feared. I need to work on raising my good cholesterol levels and  lose weight(duh!). She did say my kidney function has been compromised a little which could be from when I had gestational diabetes with Lauren or from being sick. So to try to help and preserve my kidneys I have to drink plenty of fluids which DOES NOT include diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. It's not on my list. The only thing on my list is WATER. WATER, WATER, WATER. Well, that should help with losing weight. And I'll sure have to pee a lot.

Lauren pooped in the potty today all by herself. I'm so proud! It's the little things that make us moms happy, right?

The more bills, wants, needs, obligations I have, the more I realize money just doesn't go as far as I want or need it to.

I have a cool new Scentsy car freshener for my smelly van. The gal I ordered from sent it to me as a thank you gift for being her first customer. I love gifts! My van sure needed it with 4 smelly kids in and out of it all day.

My hubby treated me to lunch today and a mint chocolate chip Italian creme soda. Ok, so that's not on my list either, but it was yummy and I did have water with my lunch.

Baby chickens eat a lot. Or maybe it's the baby goose. But they're really cute.

One example of why I can't be on the computer: In the time it has taken me to type this little post, Lauren has opened four Capri Suns and emptied them into the trash can. These are part of her two older brothers' snacks for school. Grrrrrrrr!

On that note I will have to say hasta luego!

Marathon Post

How did I let half a month go by without posting anything?! I enjoy reading other blogs so much that I neglect to update my own. I also get caught up in all the cool craft and home improvement projects that I see on other blogs that I want to try, but never make the time or have the money to do. *sigh* Oh, well . . . guess I better get to updating here.

First, hmmmm . . . oh, yeah, Easter.

We had a nice Easter lunch and egg hunt with my parents and some friends from church. We decided not to go to the big Gregson family egg hunt this year. It's just not what it used to be. I have mixed feelings about it because that's one of the reasons we wanted to move back home after Ian got out of the Navy, so that our kids could be a part of the family traditions I grew up with. But I really enjoyed sharing the day with close family and friends and not having to worry if there's enough food to feed everyone. So, having said all that, here are some photos from our egg hunt.

Lauren had to use Grandma Gregson's Easter basket to hunt eggs with. It's kinda small but she couldn't be persuaded to use her other one.

Here are Melodie and Lorie searching for eggs. These two cuties belong to my friend Toni.

Ellie had to check out her loot as she went. She's another one of Toni's cuties. (FYI---Toni (and her hubby, Aaron) have four girls and one boy so we've decided that our children are betrothed.)

Miss Sadie found the prize egg!

He cracks me up! No words needed.

Matt and his stash.

Todd, his buddy Thomas, little Miss Melodie, and my friend, Toni.

Paw Paw and the kids looking for more eggs.

Lauren won a baby with an egg she found. She also won bubbles which she later gave her baby a bath with.

Todd and his loot.

I have no idea how many real eggs we brought home, but I can tell you that that's all Matt and Lauren ate for about 2 days.

Zack's field trip to the Exploreum:

This one should really be before Easter because we went at the end of March, but we'll pretend it's next because I'm not gonna try to rearrange this thing. I'm not about keeping things in order. If  you don't believe me, come see my house. Wait. Better not. I have four kids. It's not pretty. Anywho . . . .

I was put in charge of these two riff-raff, James and Zack. They were very impressed with the T-Rex.

Zack and some of his classmates on the back of a T-Rex stuck in a tar pit.

The entrance to the dinosaur exhibit.

This was inside at the hands-on exhibits. All the kids liked this one because you could only see their heads on the platter. 

This contraption tested your upper body strength by timing how long you could hang on to the bar. 

Zack played with this for the longest time. It was a maze inside a cube with holes all along the outside of it and you had to use different shaped rods to coax the ball through the different chambers. Very cool.

I liked this one. It was the WKRG channel 5 news room. The kids could pretend to read the news or do a weather report. They both look like very tired reporters. LOL! 

This exhibit taught them about using pulleys. It was much harder than it looked.

I wanted to put a video in here, but it's taking a reeeaaallllly long time to upload. As soon as I figure it out I'll get it on here. It's a hands-on thingamajig that has to do with noises our bodies make. Yeah. Uh-huh. I bet you can guess which one the boys played with the most.

Easter Pictures from before Easter:

See? Told ya I'm all outta order. 

Since Easter Sunday and General Conference happened to be the same day, I let the kids wear their Easter clothes to church the Sunday before.

 

For some reason I don't have one of Matt by himself. Not sure how that happened. Maybe because they weren't being very cooperative that day. Yep, that's probably it.

On to the Gulf Breeze Zoo!

Now this one is in the right order because we did it last week. Woohoo, I'm catching up! But then I'll be behind again because tomorrow is the official start of baseball season. (I'll keep my comments to myself . . until tomorrow at least.)

I must now end my marathon post. I've been on this thing way too long and all hades is breaking loose behind me. 

Until next time . . . . .until tomorrow . . . until . . . . whenever.

Bow Holder

A good friend called us Friday evening and invited us to her little girl's 4th birthday party on Sat. She said it wasn't a 'party party' so we didn't have to bring a gift, but I didn't want to go empty handed. I'm pinching pennies until pay day so I decided I would try to make something(crossing fingers)----try being the operative word here because my last few projects haven't turned out so great.

After checking with my friend about her daughter's bedroom colors and searching the internet a little bit, here's what I came up with.

 

I took an old, unloved picture frame and turned it into a super cute bow and barrette holder. 

Instructions:

1. Take the back off the frame and remove the glass. I also removed the staples. 

2. Give it a light sanding. You may not need to sand the frame, but this happened to be a plastic frame and I wanted to make sure the paint had something to adhere to.

3. Give it several coats of whatever color paint that makes your skirt fly up. I chose white.

4. Attach 4 to 5 strips of coordinating ribbon (wider ribbon would work well) to the back of the frame with hot glue. I don't have an exact measurement for this. I just turned the frame over, eyeballed it, and cut. 

5. Eyeballing again, cut a length of ribbon for the hanger and tie it on to the frame. I tied it with the knots in the back.

6. Embellish with more ribbon, buttons, glitter, beads or sparkly gems. Again, whatever makes your skirt fly up. I used what I had on hand because I'm broker than broke.

Here's the finished product with Lauren's bows on it for show and tell. Finally, a project that's not on my craptastic list! My only problem is . . . . what the heck happened with this picture? I have no idea why it's sideways. It's not like this on my computer. Oh, well, I guess there always has to be something to stress me out. 

Oh, and btw, the bow holder was a hit  . . . . at least with the mom and grandma. :o)

Just call me Supermom . . . NOT.

Another dreaded sports season started yesterday and I have not one, but TWO children playing baseball in TWO different locations. Yes, they're on separate teams and yes, they wouldn't practice together anyway, but normally all the teams practice somewhere near the kids' school, i.e. football field or at someone's house close to the school. It's the central location and makes it easy for parents who have more than one child playing. This is not the case this year and I'm not thrilled about it, but I'm trying to be the supportive, encouraging parent. I'm also not happy about the team Zack is on, but that's a story for a different day.

So . . . in my attempts to be the supportive, encouraging SUPERMOM, I planned crockpot meals or other easy meals that I could prepare earlier in the day so that we could eat as soon as we made it home from practice. I found a Teriyaki Chicken recipe to try out in the crockpot. First mistake---don't attempt a new recipe when you might possibly be gone from home longer than you think. The recipe said 4-6 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. It also said the final product tends to be too salty if it's overcooked. Ok, got it! I opted for the 4-6 hours on high, started it around 1:00 thinking that it would probably cook till 6:30 at the latest. That's 5 1/2 hours, well within the time guidelines. Right? No problem. I had some steamed veggies and a salad to complete the meal.

As my luck goes, and one of the reasons I dislike my children playing sports, we didn't make it home until 7:30. 7:30! Passed supper time, passed bath time, passed bedtime! Ok, so my kids are usually just heading to bed at 7:30, but still, our normal routine is severely disrupted . . . . and I. DON'T. LIKE IT!

(Oops! . . . . stepping back down off my soapbox.)

Back to the story . . . we walked in and my fears were confirmed. The Teriyaki Chicken looked more like Blackened Chicken. My attempts at making life easier went down the drain. Well, actually, it went out the back door for the cats and chickens if you want to get technical. *sigh* So, to the snarling, gnashing of teeth, spitting and hissing dismay of my family, the backup plan was sandwiches and chips. I honestly don't know if anyone ate sandwiches because I hid in my bedroom after being showered with such a positive response. I do know there was cereal consumed because of the evidence left on the table. I guess that tells you how much my family enjoys sandwiches. This is causing me to rethink my plan to have a picnic lunch after Stake Conference this weekend because it will involve the DREADED SANDWICH. And Zack has a field trip next week and has to take a sack lunch. OH NO!!! NOT SANDWICHES AGAIN!!!

(Sorry. Another soapbox. *stepping back down carefully so I don't step on a small, foot-piercing toy*)

Because of the Blackened Chicken incident I will attempt to revamp my plan. I will start a different crockpot meal (one we've tried and enjoy) earlier than usual so we can eat BEFORE practice. Wish me luck . . . and sanity so I can make it through the baseball season.

I'm off to start that recipe, Crockpot French Dip . . . . SANDWICHES!!!

(I just had to do it. ;o))

Playing Catch Up!

Here's what we've been up to lately.

Since all three boys have birthdays in the first two weeks of March, we decided to have one big party for them. We haven't done this in a couple of years and, since there's a new gaming place open in a neighboring town, we thought it would be fun to have their party there. What kid doesn't like video and arcade games, right?


Zack opening presents---He got a Ben 10 Lego set, a yo-yo, and enough birthday money to buy a Star Wars Lego set. My house is being invaded by Legos!!!


Here's Mr. Matt. He got a Mater(from Cars) something-or-other that shoots out of a canon. I'm sure Ian will correct me after he reads this, but I can't remember what it's called. He also got an Elmo Phase 10 game, and enough birthday money to buy a Dragon Castle thingy that makes lots of noise. I'm sure I'll be corrected on this one too.


Blowing out the candles. Two wanted red velvet cupcakes and one wanted chocolate cupcakes so that's what we made. I didn't have a good picture of Todd opening his gifts, but he got a Mini Ninja's game for the Wii, a bike, and enough birthday money to buy a slew of Bakugan stuff.


Lauren had fun, too. I spent more time plucking her down from the skiball game than anything else. Thankfully no one was trying to play at the time. She also kept trying to win something out of the claw machine. She never did, but one of Todd's friends offered her a stuffed fish he won. She was too shy to take it from him, but she saw the fish sitting unattended later so she swiped it. Oops!

Here's Matt trying out the Air Hockey game.

One of Todd's classmates and his little brother.

Zack and his best bud.

Even the adults had fun.

We also had our Pack Pinewood Derby the same day as the birthday party.


These are the sibling cars that entered the sibling race. Matt's is the Superman car. If you look closely you can see a Fly Boat(Wonder Pets), a princess carriage, a Hannah Montana limo, a pink bunny, and some other creative ones. I have no idea who won this race, but I do know it wasn't Matt. :o( I was busy judging cars. Matt did win Most Futuristic Car and received a medal so he was happy with that.


Here are a few of the scouts' cars. The orange and blue one is Zack's.


These are the winners of the pack race. 1st place is the shark. It was very well done and even had a hand sticking out of its mouth. 2nd place is the red one. This is one of my Tiger Cub's car. He and his dad made it without using any power tools. And Todd came in 3rd place---the black and red car. He came in 3rd last year in our pack race and then went on to win 1st in the district derby. I'm anxious to see how he does in the district race this year, which is today.


Here are the 1st and 3rd place pack winners. The 2nd place winner couldn't be there because his family had to be out of town that weekend.


We've also had some scout advancements happen in our house. Todd earned his Webelos badge and Zack earned his Tiger badge last month.


Funny that they're both busy putting on their belt loops in these pictures. I just realized that as I'm typing this out. :o) Way to go Todd and Zack!!!


On a less important side note, I wanted to show off my honkin huge egg.


A size comparison: The honkin huge egg, a duck egg (which is the size of an extra large chicken egg), a standard size chicken egg (which is a medium-large egg), and a Silkie egg (which is a little larger than a bantam egg, but not as big as a standard chicken egg).

The honkin huge egg was a double-yoker. This is the first one we've had. I can remember Grandma Gregson's chickens laying double-yoker eggs every so often. All I can say is, that had to hurt coming out! Oh, and it made some really yummy cupcakes for the boys' birthday party. :o)