Waiting for Michael...

The concert was amazing-as usual, Michael didn't disappoint!

This was only our 3rd time to see him! :)

Our 'romantic' night out turned out a little less than romantic.

I forget how stressful it can be to NOT know exactly where

you're going in NOLA-I guess that since I've been sick,

I wasn't in my right brain...I didn't use mapquest to

make sure I knew where the Arena was,

and I didn't make dinner plans.

We were running just a bit later than we wanted, so we

called and had Ashton do mapquest for us, and after

driving to the Arena first to make sure I was certain

of where it was, (I had no idea it was part of the SuperDome)

we set off toward Canal to find some grub.

Ever been to NOLA and tried to drive much? It's a city of one way

streets, it's definitely much better walking, and we just didn't have time

to find a parking place, walk somewhere to eat,

and make it back before the show started.

So I dropped Paul off at the corner McDonald's and circled the block

5 times before picking him up on the same corner. We drove back to

the Arena and ate our McD's in the parking garage.

Yeah, I know, every girl's dream, right?

SOOOOO romantic!!

{insert sarcasm. LOTS of sarcasm.}

It was really funny, though, even then, and with the free

tickets and the cheap meal, we've been

joking about our cheap date ever since.

I'd do it again just to spend time with my honey.

Oh, and Paul too.

BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

TTFN,

Wordless Wednesday...'Daddy, that was MY bite!!'

Wordless Wednesday...what in the world...

...is Paul working on in the attic???

TTFN,

P.S. Konnie...you don't get to answer this one cause you

already know!! LOL!! ;)

Roll Tide!

Just for Paul...

What do Tigers and sandcastles have in common?

They both get washed away when the Tide rolls in!

Sorry, Kimber.

You know I love you more'n my luggage!! ;)

TTFN,

"You know me..."

Sorry about not doing a Not Me Monday yesterday.

It's not that I didn't have enough to do one,

I just had a horrible headache and couldn't get

excited about doing it.

So, anyway, Paul called yesterday from work, and I

could tell from the sound of his voice that something

was wrong. Then he said,

"You know me..."

And I cringed.

The rest of that sentence went something very much

like, "if there's a way to get hurt, I'm going to find it.

I fell down a flight of stairs that didn't have a hand rail."

And I cringed again.

"How bad is it?"

"Oh, it's not that bad. I landed on my right shoulder, though,

and the metal step shoved right under my shoulder blade."

Luckily, he went down on his back, and not end over end!

He went out to the company hospital and they sent him home early,

but didn't do xrays or anything which frustrates me.

The reason he pointed out that he hurt his right shoulder is

because he tore his rotator cuff in that same shoulder in

another accident at work about 6 years ago.

That one required surgery and around 6 months out of work.

That one could so easily have killed him.

That one still gives me chills to think about.

But thank God, he walked away with just a torn rotator cuff.

And thank God for workman's comp!! LOL. We'd have never

made it without it.

My poor husband is an accident magnet. Surely you remember

that less than 3 months ago he cut his thumb on his table saw?

Yeah, it was his right thumb.

{sigh}

Then my thoughts start going places I don't like to go.

Morbid and melancholy places I don't like to think about.

And then I pray about it and feel better.

Until the next time he calls and says,

"You know me..."

Well, as long as he can still call I guess I'll be ok.

Sorry this was such a downer. This is just where I

am today. Thanks for listening. Or reading.

Or whatever.

TTFN,

Date night!

I just had a long luxurious bubble bath in my huge tub.

~~~~Ummmm~~~~

Now Paul and I are about to get ready and go out to eat

and have a kid-free night with some friends!

Yay for date night!!

After the last few weeks, I need a night away.

Ok...I'm off to get ready! Have a great Saturday!

TTFN,

What goes around...

In a large household germs are never your friend.

The weekend we flew to Houston, Paul was sick.

That following week Jacob had Bronchitis.

That next weekend Emmie got croup.

This week Noah has had croup.

Imagine living with harbor seals.

That's what it has sounded like in my house.

Nonstop barking!

And now, of course,

I am getting sick.

What goes around comes around, right?

Yeah, the party never stops! ;)

Hmmph. (cough, cough, sniffle)

TTFN,

Let's Salsa!

Ok, so let's don't salsa-I can't really dance that well.

But Paul apparently does salsa pretty well.

The eating kind that is.

See?

Steamy!

Scooping it into the jars.

Then lidding them.

Then capping the lid!

Not my idea of a fun bath, but necessary nonetheless!

Aren't they pretty?

The finished product!!

On a scoop-yum!

Well, for Paul anyway.

See, I don't eat salsa.

:(

But he says it's pretty darn good.

So, I'm proud of him-it took most of the day, and

he did it all by himself.

Notice in the last pic that he's still not using his thumb-

he can't put enough pressure on it to even hold

the chip. But it is much better.

See you tomorrow for Sunday's Song!

TTFN,

Paul cooks.

Actually, I should clarify-

Paul cooks

~~ALOT~~

And usually a far cry

better than I do.

Today he decided to be ambitious.

Do something he's never done before.

Can you guess what it is??

I hate to say it, but it all looks yucky to me, and my

house smells awful.

But I'll let you know how (he says) it turns out!!

:)

TTFN,

Not Me Monday! She Works Hard For The Money style!

Welcome to Not Me Monday!

Created by MckMama as a way for all us

royally messed up perfect moms

to share our seriously whacked out perfect week.

Hop on over to MckMama's blog and see what she and

all the other moms have not been doing this week.

Ok, so this totally happened a few weeks ago-I'm not just now

catching up! As a doting mom, I am never unaware of any

of my children's whereabouts. And as such, my youngest two

are not left alone in the living room for short periods

of time while the rest of us congregate in the kitchen.

Noah is able to open doors, for the most part, but usually just

doesn't, so it's usually not a problem-we just keep the

doors shut.

This particular evening, however, when Jacob went

back into the living room, he did not call out,

"Momma, Emmie's crying, but I can't see her."

We did not all fly into the living room only to

find that he was indeed telling the truth! There was

crying, along with banging, but the crying baby was nowhere

in sight! We quickly realized the crying was coming from my

room and all rushed in there to discover my bathroom door

shut with the crying banging baby on the other side.

Only it wasn't Emmie, it was Noah! We opened and

they were both in there playing with soap and Noah had

gotten some in his eyes. Ashton scooped Noah up and ran

him to the other bathroom to flush his eyes out while I grabbed

Emmie who was making a frantic b-line for the toilet-giggling

madly all the way. I washed her up and thankfully they were

both fine. And that's where the story ends.

NOT.

The next day I went in and used the bathroom, flushed

and went on about my day. Later in the day I went

back again and saw that there was toilet paper in there-

curious, cause the kids don't use my potty unless there

is someone already using theirs, but it does happen,

and they are notorious for not flushing, so I didn't really

think too much about it. I pottied and flushed, but this time

I was in the bathroom long enough to watch in horror as

the toilet began to back up. Thankfully it stopped at the rim

without spilling over!! After a minute of thinking,

I realized what had probably happened. Emmie happened.

That's why she was running to the toilet with the soap in

her hands-she had certainly already thrown something in there

and was on her way to throw the soap in!

I called Paul and told him. His idea? For me to reach my hand in and

see if I could pull anything out. WHAT?? OMGosh. 'Your hands

are smaller than mine anyway,' he said. UGH. Whatever.

So I tried and couldn't find anything.

~Word to the wise-if you ever have to stick your hand in a toilet

use a bowl or something to scoop most of the water out first!!~

The next day Paul pulled the toilet up. Still couldn't find anything.

He took it outside and used something flexible (I honestly

don't know what) to run all the way through the p-trap (that's

what that little 's' curve on the toilet is called) and

THIS is what he pulled out!!

NO! We do not bring home LOTS of soap from Disney

World. Not us. Anyway, apparently they were

in the bathroom quite a while.

Or would have been-you know-if that story were true.

Which it totally isn't.

Then, because my hubby went and tried to de-thumb

himself the next day, guess who had to put the toilet back down??
Nope, not me!!

Plumber's crack and all. Hehe. Just kidding.

And totally forgot to take pictures. Darn.

This is what I have actually not been doing this

past week or 2-thanks again to the above mentioned

de-thumbing attempt.

1. Wiping every butt.

2. Giving every bath-including helping Paul

who can't get his stitches wet.

(Lucky for him he can wipe his own butt left handed)

3. Brushing the teeth.

4. Cooking every meal.

5. Cleaning up after said meals.

6. All housework-inside and out.

If you can think of it, I have not done it-by my self.

What? There's not a paycheck? Cause I've really been working

hard for the money this week. I guess I'll just have to

be happy with all the smiles, giggles,

hugs, kisses, and 'I love you's'.

Cause all that's not what I'm really here for anyway.

(Ok maybe it really is :)

Hope you enjoyed this week's therapy session.

I know I didn't.

Hehe.

TTFN,

Back to Life...Back to Reality...

Wow.

I haven't posted since Monday!

Sorry I've been seemingly out of touch.

I've been checking in most days, especially to check on

Stellan and Abby.

I've pretty well kept up with everyone's posts,

but I haven't been commenting.

Shame on me!

Sorry-I will catch up as much as I can.

***************************************

The last two weeks have really flown by.

Probably because they are the last two weeks of

summer for us. The girls go back to school on Wednesday,

and Jacob will go one day the end of next week and

officially start the following Monday. This is

just a brief rundown of all we've been doing lately.

We have been shopping for all this:

This is Ashton's, Sydney's and Jacob's school stuff, respectively.

And I didn't even take a picture of the uniforms.

LOTS of money spent of school stuff!!

*******************************************

I did Emmie's hair in pigtails for the first time the other

day, and it was so cute I thought I'd share it!

This is Noah's favorite new thing to do. First he pulls all

the cushions off (both) couches and then he and Emmie

play on them. Emmie loves it because she can climb on all

by herself-she's getting VERY good at climbing these days!

Noah loves to bring things with him-like this diaper box, but

he has also gotten up there on top of a ride on car!!

We have also been test driving a 12 passenger van. (Of course, I'm

never without my camera...ahem...or I'd have pictures to show.)

I'm not entirely sold on the idea yet. But if we're going to keep

growing our family, we'll need a bigger vehicle eventually. I'm just

not happy with the options out there right now. We'll see how

it pans out.

******************************************

These are some pics from Easton's birthday party.

Easton is my friend Konnie's little boy, and he's one

month and a day younger than Emmie. He had

a great time with his cake.

Here's Jacob getting in the pool.

Sydney's friend Carleigh and Sydney cheesing.

Noah having a blast. This was before he took a big poop in

his swim diaper. It leaked, of course, and we had to get everyone

off the waterslide. To make matters worse, he began picking

up the turds and throwing them out of the water! Nope, I'm not

kidding in the slightest. I was horrified. Thankfully, most everyone

had already left, and Konnie and Isaac were very good

sports about it!

Emmie and Easton in the bounce house/ballpit.

Emmie sitting on their doorstep blowing kisses.

***************************************

I also have to say a very happy birthday to my honey.

Paul is 38 today.

I love you, baby.

Happy Birthday!!

********************************************

And speaking of Paul, his hand is finally doing better after a

major setback. When we went to have the stitches taken

out, the doctor was appalled at how bad it still looked.

Apparently the ER docs didn't clean the wound properly and

things weren't healing at all. Thank God he didn't get an infection.

But the dr did have to reopen the wound and do minor

surgery on it in his office. (I could give details, but it's really TMI and

I don't want to gross anyone out!) It was basically like starting from

square one-only the pain was MUCH worse this time. My poor

baby sobbed all the way from the dr's office to the house

-freaking me and the children out completely-

and we had to call my cousin the pharmacist to find out

just how much pain medicine he could safely take to ease

the pain. It was truly awful. I felt so helpless! But he's better

now, and has been off pain meds since yesterday! Praise God!

********************************************

Emmie's new word is 'cack'

cack=cat

cack=dog

cack=basically any 4 legged animal that remotely

resembles a cat. It's pretty funny!!

She also says 'cuck'

which is cup.

She also yells insanely loudly anytime she

wants your attention. Which is all the time.

*********************************************

A funny Noah story:

Just tonight at dinner, Noah wasn't eating well.

He had a handfull of rice and he kept saying,

"They my babies! I tan't eat my babies!"

We were all giggling because he was being so silly.

Just off the top of my head, I said,

"Noah, the rice wants to go to the party...

the party in your tummy!"

(If you've never seen Yo, Gabba, Gabba, this will

mean nothing to you. But it's still a funny story!)

So he looks at the rice in his hand and says,

"Rice wanna do(rhymes with go) to the potty in my tummy?"

(Yeah, his word for party sounds like potty-causing much more

laughter from the rest of us!)

Syd and Ash said, "yeah!" in a high pitched voice

like the rice answering back.

Noah giggled and gobbled his rice up!

We did this routine with every bite for the rest of the meal

until he was almost through. On one of his last bites,

after he already had the food in his mouth, he hollared,

in the same high pitched voice we were using to represent

the food, "OH, NO! HE'S EATING US!!!"

OMGosh it was so stinking funny!!

I love my kids!

**************************************

Well, if you're still here, thanks for hanging in there!
This was a LONG post!!!

Hopefully I won't let myself get so far behind again!!

TTFN,

I ♥ Faces Week 28-Feet

I ♥ Faces

Week 28-Feet

Emmie loves chalk and usually gets it everywhere-

including her feet!

I love this pic-it has her chubby hands too.

Sorry I've been AWOL for a few days.

Paul ran his thumb into his table saw on Friday

and we had a crazy weekend. He's fine, although in a lot of pain.

Thankfully he will not have to have surgery to fix the bone

he shattered-they said it should heal on it's own. I would post

pictures, but I like most of you, and don't want to scare anyone

off! :) Needless to say, I've been playing nurse and doing most

everything around the house by myself. I'll try to catch up

on my reading and commenting later today.
I really wanted to participate in the 'Not my child

Monday,' but Paul had an appt with the ortho-hand

specialist yesterday and last night I was just too

tired to think that much! I can't wait to read everyone

else's though!
TTFN,

Wordless Wednesday-Hop on Pop!!

P.S. Notice Paul's facial expressions! He was hamming

it up-the kids LOVE it!

Props to Pop!
TTFN,

Just a little FYI-I'm going to end my giveaway THIS

Friday, July 17. Waiting till the 24th is just

gonna drive me crazy! If you haven't entered yet,

click here!!

There and back again-a vacation story in pictures. (Post #99!!!)

Disclaimer:

This is a LONG picture post. I will type as little

as possible.

You're welcome.

Ok, so this isn't a vacation pic-but my hair is straight

and that NEVER happens and I wanted everyone

to see it. Thank you Mary for using your Chi so well!

Now for the vacation:

The kids on the porch at Priester's Pecans.

Another pic by Paul on the top of Stone Mountain.

I didn't freak out when I saw this one-then I realized

it's the zoomed one...

this is the actual shot! Paul swears they weren't

in as much danger as it looks!! He says they weren't

actually sitting on the edge of the world

mountain, that it gently sloped down behind them

and there was even a fence. Humph.

I thought this was a really cool shot.

This is the mountain face-it has a beautiful intricate

relief of three Confederate heroes (Davis, Lee, and Grant,) and they do a

fantastic laser light show right on the mountain itself!

There are tons of other things to do-check out their website!

This is just us! :)

Waiting for the show to start! It was the Fourth of

July show and it was fantastic! I totally didn't cry!

(Yeah, yeah, I know it's not Monday!)

Now for the Six Flags and White Water pics!

This is me with my Wonder Woman cape that

Paul won for me.

Totally appropriate, I think! Hehe!

Nothing like a family Fourth of July pic with

Tweety Bird!

Jacob and Batman! He was so excited that Batman

spoke!! (Cause none of the cartoon characters did)

Paul and Noah on the Carousel.
A bit of trivia:
A carousel goes counter-clockwise,
a merry-go-round goes clockwise.
That's the only difference!
Love Marvin the Martian!!
Paul chillaxin at the water park!
Syd cheesin in the pool.

Ash also cheesin in the pool!

Jacob cheesin in the pool!
(getting redundant...sorry!)

Noah playing at the kiddie pool. He had a

blast at the water park!!

Emmie just being Emmie.

Paul fought the no-nap monster and won!

Paul with friends from church-

Mandy, her son Noah, and Lindsay!

Ashton and Emmie looking down from the

sky bucket.

Syd riding the trucks with Noah!

Me and Emmie riding the trucks. Also my

favorite pic-taken by Sydney. :)

We had a great time! It wasn't too hot, and we spent

lots of family time together! It was wonderful.

I have tons more pics, but I figure that's enough!!

I wish blogger had a simpler uploader.

Anyone know a faster way to upload pics?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just wanted to point out-this is post 99!!

It doesn't seem possible that I'm almost to 100!

For those that are interested, scroll back up and

click on the link to Priester's Pecans. Pick out

some YUMMY goodies and be ready to

tell me what you'd like to try!

Watch for my post tomorrow for

more information!!

TTFN,