Man, I have no idea where the past couple of weeks have gone. I know there was some back to school clothes shopping in there somewhere, and that is about it.

Since last week our house has been passing the crud around again. Megan wasn't feeling too well the night of her cheer thing. She ended up with a fever, and a cough that sounded like a seal. The fever has been gone since Friday, but a week later she still isn't feeling well. Man I don't want to take them all to the doctor and risk getting a new strain of crud right before school starts.

Matthew and Trevor are both barking, and Matthew had a fever. Infact, with Matthew being so hoarse, the house has been kind of quiet! LOL! I never really think about how LOUD that little boy is until he is quiet for a long time.

Now I am lucky enough to have a sore throat.

I don't get it. It is hot enough here that you would think that anytime you went outdoors it was hot enough to knock out any living virus!

So I suppose Beth started out the summer with a bang, and now we are ending it with a bang.

*******

The kids start school again in less than 2 weeks. I'm getting excited about that. Infact, a small update on evil girl. Megan called her today! It was short, and small talk..... but Megan said that she felt much better about starting school now. I told her that she just has to keep being nice but stand up for yourself. In other words, don't lower yourself to the name calling like the other girl is doing. It will all figure itself out in the end.

I hope you are all doing well. I promise to get better about updating once everybody is feeling better and school starts again. I miss everybody!

Love you all!

Cheer

Today was the last day of cheer camp. It seems like it went by so quickly! The girls had a little program that they put together so the parents could see what they have been working on. It was so cute!

Unfortunately where we were sitting, I didn't have a good view of Megan for pictures, so this is one of the best ones that I have of her. Just like me...so tall that she always ends up in the back of every group thing. Sorry sweetie.

Mike was able to arrange his school schedule to be there too. So afterwards we all went out for lunch. I was telling Megan and Trevor that they will be starting the self defense classes that I signed them up for next month.

I reminded Megan that what she was going to learn in self defense she couldn't use on anybody at home. She says, "I know not to use what I learn in that class on Trevor, since he'll be in it with me he'll know how to hurt me back!"

That's a good enough reason.

And Matthew can pretty much hold his own. LOL!

Thank you

Ack. You guys are NO help at all. haha! I knew you were going to tell me to let her handle it, but my mommy instincts are still to kick this girl's ass.

Would it really be that bad if she had an unfortunate incident on her bicycle or something? Or I hired some 6th graders to break her knees? Saprano style.

I just can't believe this is happening. I guess it happened to me and I figured that it would skip a generation or something. (I still hope that Jenny Rogers is out there somewhere living in a trailer, and is leading a totally miserable life. Yeah, I'm still a little bitter. Haha!)

Fortunately, every movie I ever see where there is a mean girl, she always gets it in the end. So that is what I am hoping for. The perfect Disney channel ending.

Plus Megan is taking self defense classes next month. She might be able to kick evil girl's ass on her own if she needs to. ;)

Seriously, thanks for the replies girls. I really do appreciate it. Man, I know some really smart people. This girl stuff is something else I tell you. And June, somehow knowing how calm you are, I can totally 'hear' you in mommy mode. You make things make sense. Now, do you want to come over and have a 'talk' with evil girl? ;)

Jen, I remember a layout where you had mentioned something like this with Alex. Poor girl, she is so cool too, I can't understand who mean girls think they are. Since time has passed, have things gotten better? Did the other girl ever come around? I wonder what it is that just makes them think like that??? It is so strange that there doesn't even have to be a reason.

Laura, keep Sarah small as long as you can. At least she has a big brother to watch over her. I think that will help out a lot. And Beth.... you can help me with some evil plan.

Well, you have made me feel somewhat better. I'm so anxious about school starting now. This is one of the reasons that I really hate that they can't let us know what teachers the kids will be getting in the beginning of the summer. I remember always being so anxious about wondering who was going to be in my class all summer long, and now I see Megan going through it because of this whole ordeal. A few more weeks. I'll make it. Breathe in..... breathe out......

Thanks mom!

I got a nice surprise in the mail today from my mom! This is a magnet that she sent me!

LOL!

Isn't it the truth???

Thank you mom! You know I love it, and now I'm trying to decide whether or not to put it in my scraproom or the kitchen.

Little girl politics

I have been MIA again for a few days. Just stuff that has kept me busy, and then I spent all day yesterday out with my little girl.

My MIL took the boys all day and overnight for me while Mike was out of town. So Megan and I started our day yesterday after cheer. We went out for lunch, went to Justice and found a ton of cute clothes for back to school. I would say that 85% of what we found was on clearance too. That is the one really good thing about AZ. For some reason, they put out these adorable fall clothes for the next season coming up, but it is still pretty hot for many more months. So all of the shorts and short sleeve things are on clearance so they can put out all of the long sleeve things, and wool skirts!!! LOL.

So we spent probably 3 hours in ONE store trying on clothes. Then we went on over to the Chandler Mall. We were there for a long time and found a few more things for school and had dinner.

We came home and scrapped until 11:00 last night and then finally went to bed. It was a blast.

Anyway....I don't know how I got off on that rant.

Today we stopped at a friend's house to drop off some Polly Pocket stuff that she had left last week. Her mom asked if Megan wanted to stay for awhile and go swimming and then she would bring her back by when they had to leave for an appointment.

A little background: There is another girl at Megan' school that has that queen bee mentality. She is obnoxious, has rich parents so she buys everything for popularity, and for some reason has decided that she doesn't like Megan. I personally think it is because Megan was the last new girl in the class last year, and Megan might have stolen some of this little girl's thunder.

Then two weeks after school ended, there was a slumber party that Megan came home from crying. She said evil girl was there and was mean to her. Apparently evil girl said that Megan stepped on her and didn't say she was sorry, and rallied the rest of the little girls to shun Megan for the rest of the party. Even the birthday girl told Megan that she would never invite her over to her house again. So she has been thinking about that all summer.

Fortunately evil girl has been away ALL summer until last week, so we haven't had to deal with her.

OK, there really is a point to all this, so stay with me. Today Megan comes home from nice girl's house and is upset. She said that nice girl told Megan that evil girl was at her house last week and said that Megan is retarded. I asked Megan what nice girl said to evil girl, and she said she didn't say anything. I asked her if they talked about it anymore after nice girl said that to Megan and she said no. I'm really surprised that nice girl brought it up to Megan to be honest. They really have similar personalities so I don't know why she said that to her. She is usually very compassionate.

I think evil girl found out that nice girl has spent a lot of time with her this summer, and she might be a little jealous of that. Who knows.

But why is this starting so early? I just want to go over and punch evil girl in the face. There is absolutely nothing that Megan has done to evil girl other than exist. Have any of you had anything like this happen with your older girls? Lisa? Beth? Jen? June? What do I do? These little girl politics are going to drive me crazy.

Megan makes friends easily, but evil girl seems to have some sort of hypnotic thing over the entire female part of the class. (Hmmm, buying friendship???) I just don't know what to do about this and it totally breaks my heart.

So, what can I do? Mike and I think that we should wait until school starts, give it a few weeks, and see what happens. If we should talk to evil girl's mom. Who we actually know, so it isn't like we would back her into a corner and point fingers at evil girl. Just try to say, "They are so young, what can we do about this?"

I would never consider doing this if they were older. I know that they need to duke it out and learn on their own like we all did. But 7,8,9 is just so young and they might not know how to handle it themselves.

Crap. I don't know. I still want to go over and punch her in her evil little face. ;)

Whoa, Monster House

Today we took the kids to see Monster House. (Thank goodness for some issue with the plane before Mike had to go flying, so he got to come home early!)

It was fun to have a day to do this. The kids were really excited.

I didn't think that it would be as scary as it was!!! It was a good movie, but I thought it would be more along the lines of "Scooby Doo" scary. My fault for not doing my research on the movie or finding out what other people had to say about it first. I spent the entire movie with two boys firmly squished to my sides. Matthew would bury his head in my arm most of the time, and would only come up for a little air and an occasional bite of popcorn.

Megan loved it. She is the perfect age for it. I thought it was a great movie and really enjoyed it. There were only a couple of things that I wasn't too thrilled with. One of the kids takes some cough medicine from his dad's pharmacy and talks about it later in the movie as "I stole drugs."
Here I have been telling my kids how bad drugs are, blah blah blah. And they kind of lump cough medicine (which my kids have to take) into the 'drug' catagory. So now my kids are either going to think that drugs are no big deal, or that mommy makes them take drugs when they are sick. Megan even stresses out when I say 'drug store' to her. She corrects me and says, "It is a pharm-a-cy mom. A pharmacy is where you get medicine that makes you feel better when you are sick. Drugs are baaaaaad."

Then another time the babysitter's boyfriend is leaving the house, and he says, "prude." Whhhhyy is that neccessary in a kid's movie? Oh and he was drinking a beer and was obviously drunk when he left the house. OK, I'm not trying to be prudish myself here....but it is a kid's movie and it really didn't have anything to make the story any better.

My favorite part without giving anything away is the end. It is Halloween. Ahhh....Beth will totally understand me on this one.....the kids are trick or treating up and down a tree lined street with leaves blowing everywhere. You know Beth and I live for Halloween! I could almost smell pumpkins!!!

Anyway...that has been our day. I am so full of popcorn I think I am going to explode. Ugh.

thank you!

Thank you everybody for answering my question! Mike said something about I needed to delete some cookies. Whatever the heck that means in computer/technical talk. LOL!

I wish there was a way to delete the cookies from my middle and rear end. That would be AWESOME!

I think I'm going to change my song today.... so stay tuned! ;)

Quick question

Other than the the fact that most of the song is missing now for some reason.....is my page harder for anybody to open up since I put music on here?

I have to keep clicking on something when I visit my own page, and then it freezes for a minute. Kind of a pain in the butt.

Is this happening to anybody else?

My computer/technical question/ go to guy is out of town until later tonight. His works fine on his blog.

Computers hate me.

The big bike

I was up too late last night. Ugh, and feeling it this morning. But I did get some scrapping done!

Here is the page from Trevor's bike lesson. Another reason I love to blog... I just took the journaling from my entry. *poof* done.

I know it probably seems kind of mean to have that photo of him crying, but the page I did years ago of Megan learning to ride her bike, I have a picture of her like that too. I think it must be a family tradition now. Poor Matthew. He's next!

I am really thinking that I need to come up with something other than green combinations! Man, I am in a rut! But I love green with little boy pages! Green and blue...green and brown....green and orange....

I might just have to throw in a pink boy page for fun! Ha ha!

Turn it up loud captain!!!!

Thank you Mike! *mwah!*

OK, I promise to be a good blogger and change my songs every now and then.

I also take requests!!! Except NO Fleetwood Mac.

*testing*

*testing*

Neat thing

I'm just trying to kill some time before we take Megan to cheer camp today.

I forgot about this really cool program that Lisa gave me a long time ago. It is called The Journaler's Sidekick, from CK. It has literally hundreds and hundreds of topics and journaling prompts for when you get in a rut.

If you actually keep up with it, it will ask you a question everyday. Or you can pick a random question. Then it saves it all for you in one spot so you can go back and read them like a journal.

I read some of my older entries from a few years ago. This is what is so cool about writing about things that seem so ordinary or mundane. You just keep going on in life, sometimes forgetting some of the things that were part of who you were not too long ago.

One I read in particular was: It is 2:00 in the afternoon, what are you usually doing?

I wrote about this topic not too long after Matthew was born. I was talking about how he usually takes a nap around that time, and how much Trevor was starting to talk! Wow! Plus I was saying how usually around 2:00 we were picking Megan up from KINDERGARTEN! Man, that seems almost like a lifetime ago, now that I have a third and a first grader... and my youngest is 3! Life really does happen in the blink of an eye.

This program is pretty cool too because it will ask you questions to write about like:

What has been your greatest sorrow?
What has been your greatest joy?
What did your grandfather do for a living?
Describe a sound from your childhood.
Did you have a bicycle? What was it like?

Some are obviously more thought provoking than others, and some are just neat things. I have fond memories of my pink bike with the glittery banana seat. I used to cut up straws to put on the spokes so it made a cool noise when I rode it. See? Some goofy things, but I hadn't thought about that bike in YEARS. - Or other things that I like to remember and put down somewhere. Whether it is in a journal, a scrapbook page or maybe this blog. If anybody wants some of the questions, I can email them to you. :)

And it did its purpose today. It helped me kill some time, and I think I might use some of the journaling on a page to do later.

I plan on doing some scrapping later since I placed a big order at Costco last night! Woohoo!!! Later!

Sunday

Sunday morning. Bright and early! Mike took Megan and I flying this morning.

I have to admit...I get it now. Flying is fun. This is my first time in the front of a small plane. I really had a blast!

It is so cool to see the areas that you drive around everyday from up above. We flew over our house, and my favorite Target. We also flew to another airport to have breakfast. That was kind of neat. I think I could get used to this!

I did learn however, that I will probably never be flying by myself. Man, listening to Mike communicating with the towers just confused me.

The weather was great. It is hard to believe that there actually IS some cool air in Arizona right now. Unfortunately it is way up there. LOL!

Hope everybody is having a great weekend!

It's still hot

Today we met my sister and her two sons at Peter Piper Pizza. We haven't seen each other in a long time, and that seemed like a good kid friendly place to meet and be able to talk a little bit. Her boys have gotten so big! One is going into 8th grade, and the other is going to be a sophomore next year! Holy cow.

My kids were THRILLED to hang out with their big cousins. Plus Steven and Jonathan won a ton of tickets that they gave to my kids. I lost track of how many we had, somewhere around 600! So my kids got to do a little shopping. Funny how that much money in tokens bought two slinkys, 3 yo yo's, a couple of lollipops and about 30 little plastic dogs that Megan wanted so badly. (She was hoping for 99 of them!) We still have some tickets left over, but we'll take them back again soon.

Of course you would think one purpose of going to a pizza place would be to eat. My kids were so excited that between the three of them, one piece was eaten. I was hoping to get out of making dinner tonight, but of course once we got home they were telling me how starving they were!!

It was nice to get out of the house though. This time of year you just have to look for indoor things to do. I can't wait until the fall when I renew my membership to the zoo. I'll have two kids in all day school, so Matthew and I plan on spending a lot of time there this year. It is hard to believe that will be in a few months! Yay!

Nothing exciting here. :) - but sometimes that is a good thing!

another one

I know, every now and then I go crazy ordering the 8 x 12 size at Costco. It is such a cool size to play with, plus makes pages super easy!

I did this one today while the kids were playing together nicely. (I owe them for that!)

For once my totally bare, builder white colored stairwell came in handy. There are some windows on a little landing up there that have awesome light during the day. This angle is pretty much how I talk to the kids when they are upstairs and I am downstairs. Ha ha! But I swear, this kid is always smiling, so I had to take some pictures one time.

The journaling says:

* brings a certain vivacity to the most ordinary day

* is so gentle when he climbs up on your lap to snuggle or tell you about his day

* will hurl himself across a room at super sonic speeds just to offer mommy a hug

* loves to play video games with daddy

I'm also trying to use some of the older stuff that I have in my scraproom. Like those rub ons. You know, I kept holding on to them waiting for the perfect layout. I don't really know what I had in my mind as being the perfect layout though. But they finally got used.

I can't be a hoarder anymore. I swear, last month I spent the same amount on scrap supplies as two car payments. NOT a good thing at all. So I am trying really hard to keep using the stuff that I already have. It is kind of a challenge to myself.

Off to get some boys out of the shower and play a game with them before bed. :)

I'm meeelting!

Good GRIEF. It is HOT HOT HOT.

See, this is what happens when it is too hot to do anything. I sit around, and I blog. Look forward to many more entries about nothing since we are in the midst of summer right now. Even the hot bugs are out. You know those annoying bugs that buzz in the trees and automatically make it feel even 20 degrees HOTTER?

We just picked up Megan from Cheer Camp. Of course the boys wouldn't believe me that it really is too hot to play on the really super cool playground in front of the rec center, but we played for about 30 minutes anyway. It is covered, so at least the equiptment isn't burning with huge flames.

I found a really cool spot to take some great family pictures this fall though, so at least I feel like I accomplished something other than sweating.

I swear, this is our last summer without a pool. :p

mojo

Don't you love those weeks where it just seems like pages come together really easily? I have been busy doing some scrapping this week. :)

The one of Megan running is a horrible, out of focus photo, but I love it. It is one of those that just seemed to catch exactly who she is, and her personality. Just a goofy kid who runs like a girl!

Which actually, that was the paper that I was going to use for my ad challenge, but I accidentally ordered the photo bigger than I meant to...so there is absolutely no white space like from the ad. Oh well, there is more of the paper left, so I plan on still doing my page for that. I think I am just working backwards! LOL!

The one of Trevor has a bad word on it. I promise he doesn't talk like that all the time. It was just funny. He knew he wasn't supposed to say it because he looked at us like he thought he was going to get in trouble. But, the timing of it was hysterical. I think you can click on it to read the journaling.

So that is somewhat of what I have been doing.

Jen - you need to tell me your trick for your pages looking like they are scanned right out of a magazine. They are always so clear. These honestly look better in real life!

I hope everybody is happy and healthy out there!!! Love you all!

New bike!

Well, technically the bike is new, but it hasn't been used since Santa brought it for Christmas last year. For some reason Trevor was terrified of it, so it sat unloved in the garage all these months. He was so sure that it was too big for him. He was really hanging on to his little boy bike, that looked like something from a circus. His little knees would almost hit his chin while he was peddling. I used to watch him riding up and down the street picturing a little monkey riding on top of his shoulders. Really, it was time to retire the little green bike.

So yesterday we went out front after dinner to learn to ride the big bike. He did great. He only fell a couple of times (once into a tree) but really, he did great. I don't know why he is so afraid of it. His feet touch the ground when he stands. Who knows, maybe he is like me...he doesn't get real excited about the next step up when it comes to growing up. He has always been comfy where he is at. (Unlike Megan who is ready to be 17 right now.)

This photo is the closest thing to a smile that I could get. Mike would send him down from one end of the street, and Trevor would just be yelling, "mommy! mommy!" over and over. Every time he made a turn Megan and I would cheer for him.

So far he says that he will go out tonight and try it again. I have also bribed him with taking him to go get some ice cream afterwards. No matter what...I think he looks like a pretty cool, big kid on that bike!

Who knew teaching kids to ride a bike would be so much work. Actually, Mike gets more of a workout than I do. He is always the runner. Probably because I am the one who would say, "OK sweetie, you don't have to do this now." I admit it, I'm a sucker once those tears start. - I can't believe that we still have ONE more to go after this one. Hopefully since Matthew will have seen his brother and sister ride bikes, he will actually WANT to.

Whew. This kid stuff. It isn't for sissies that is for sure.

Cheer camp! RAH RAH RAH!

GIL


BERT


IS


HERE


TO


GO,


FIGHT,


WIN!!!


Megan's cheer camp started today. We are doing it through the parks and rec center. How did I not know about this before?? Oh my gosh, they have the coolest center, and so many things for kids to do!! I feel like I have missed out on so many summers, and activities for the kids to do. How is it that some moms just know this stuff, then there are moms like me that just learn by hearing from other moms?? But always a day late and a dollar short, ya know? I must be missing that supermom gene.

Megan has been a bit obsessed with cheerleaders since she started watching Kim Possible. So when we found out about this beginner class, we were so happy to get her in it. She was patiently waiting all summer for July to get here for the classes to start. It is only an hour, two days a week. Plus a huge bonus is the teacher was a TA in her second grade class! So she felt so comfortable right away.

It is adorable seeing her out in the living room practicing what she learned today.

The boys were so excited when we were looking through a catalog and noticed how many fun things there are for their age groups. Lots of cool art classes, some sports and a creepy crawly cooking class. I'll definitely be more on the ball when registration comes this fall!

I'll definitely get some pictures later this week of my new little cheerleader! GO! FIGHT! WIN!

Sunday

Little update from the week:

both kids are feeling much better, off the couch and back to normal! Yay!

Today we decided to ditch church since Mike hasn't been around much lately because of school and work. So we had a family day.

We started out with a trip to Target. I promised Matthew a new set of playdoh colors since he spent the entire day before at the table playing with his playdoh stuff. He sat so still for a haircut, I used it as a bribe too.

Trevor got some too, just for being a good boy, and Megan picked out some paints.

So while the kids are happy and content with the new art stuff from Target, I cleaned up my scrap area. Look! There really is a table under there! I am such a messy scrapper. This probably had 2 inches of paper, ribbon and junk on it.

I'm pretty good about keeping my cabinet that holds my paper, stamps and all that clean and organized...but this feels good to have gotten done today.

Then we went out for dinner with Mike's parents since today is his dad's birthday. I worked on an album of his truck that he just had restored. A 1948 Ford truck that used to be his father's truck. It is really pretty cool. It used to haul vegetable from their farm in Taylor, AZ. His dad loved the album. That always is such a good feeling when you work on something for somebody else and they really look happy.

The rest of the day, I guess we will just try to hide inside from the heat. Usually we would go outside when the sun is going down and ride bikes or something, but since the kids have been sick I don't want them to do too much yet. We'll probably end up watching a Disney Channel movie. What would we do without those during the summer??

So that is the weekend. Nothing overly exciting, but nice. Please oooh and ahhhh over my clean scrap table. *wink*

ding ding ding! Round 2!

Last week Trevor was sick, and is still getting better. He is having a hard time kicking this virus that seems to be going around our house right now.

This is Matthew. One of 2 that are sick right now. Poor guy finally fell asleep about 15 minutes ago.

Last night Matthew came into our room around midnight. He was burning up and said that his tummy hurt. I went and got him some Tylenol and Gatorade, and went back to his bed with him. I was rubbing his tummy until he fell asleep.

A little bit later, Megan comes in and she is hot and saying that her tummy hurt too.

Oh boy.

So I wonder. Is this the same thing that Trevor had? He actually started out with pink eye and then the next day had the high fever. OR is this some wonderful crud that we picked up at the doctor's office last week? Ay yi yi.

I have to admit though, with two of them sick...it is really quiet around here today. Megan and Matthew have been watching TV, and I have been sitting with them on the couch. Except for awhile after I went to Target and brought them some 'sick day' goodies. Megan got a book, and the boys got small playdoh sets. Plus little cans of Sprite. Poor guys.

So that is what is going on in our house today. Wish me luck!

scrapping time!

Whew. I finally got several projects finished that were due for Devine Memories, plus an album that my mother in law asked me to put together for my father in law's birthday coming up. I finally got to do a little somthing for myself. I don't mind the challenge of having to do stuff for other people...I don't think I can ever get tired of scrapping! It is too much fun getting to play with paper and fun, fun stuff!

This page has roots from CKU last year. Every teacher who had an album track would come in and design a 8x8 page, then we were supposed to put them in an album and *tada* have a complete album with pages from each teacher.

The thing is, by the time everybody had come in and given us all of the supplies to do the pages, they didn't seem to all look good together. Not a big deal, some designers you like better than others. So I decided I was just going to take that time to relax for the first time the whole weekend (you CKU alumni know that is a rarity!! LOL!) then I just put all of the goodies aside.

This was somewhat from Heidi's class. Cute page that she did. All of the letters were on some sort of envalope so you could tuck reciepts in them. I don't save reciepts. Who needs the evidence laying around anyway! ;)

So still having my painted letters, and using scraps that were laying on my table tonight (plus one sheet of new Cactus Pink that I couldn't wait to use!) Lately I am ALL ABOUT getting rid of all of the stuff that I seem to have accumulated. Use it or pitch it, right? So I did this version instead. Just a fun one for the night because I felt like scrapping but wasn't up to a hard core page. This one is going in my album that is all about me. I'm doing it in 81/2 x 11 just for fun.

The journaling says: It isn't a secret. In fact, it is probably safe to say that most women love shopping. It must have something to do with our primitive selves that used to go out and gather. That is what I am doing. Gathering. Gathering stuff from Target, the mall, scrapbook stores, etc.

Even more fun than shopping in itself is the thrill of the hunt. Looking for those awesome little orange price tags at Target that only mean one thing - clearance. I stalk the end caps like a lioness hunting for prey. Mike teases me that half of our home is decorated with things that once came to the house with an orange tag on it. He's probably right. I admit it, I love to shop.

****

BTW, if I owe anybody an email or a phone call...I promise I haven't forgotten about you! Trevor was sick for awhile and then we have been catching up the past couple of days. :)

Later chicas! And nighty night!