Another one of those days...

1. Wake up - snow on the ground, so cold that Cooper and Oscar need to be "chauffeured" out the back door =).

2. Realize schools are closed and that the roads are bad. Had to cancel our Monthly Kitchen Queens party. Me and Owen have a nutritional breakfast of Fully Loaded Baked Potato Lays and Chocolate teddy grahams =). BTW - Feeling much better now!!

3. Remember that Claire spent the night in Fayetteville with Tara (that's why it is so quiet=)), call Shane to set up a time to run other errands (I refuse to drive on bad roads) and go pick up Claire.

4. Bundle up to go with Shane, run a very bundled up Owen across the street to Mom, football in hand that he refuses to put down. I am sure Nonna is thrilled to see us come in with the football in her nice clean, calm home.

5. Shane and I had to get some papers notarized. Go to the bank, deal with older lady that looks and acts just as happy to be out in the cold as we do. She notarizes everything.

6. Get back in the car, head out towards Fayetteville to get Claire, realize nice lady forgot a form.

7. Go back to bank, get notarized again.

8. Go pick up Claire.

9. Drive back to Rogers, pick up lunch and head back to Mom's.

10. Shane leaves to go back to work, we eat lunch with Mom.

11. Bundle up me and the kids, Owen with stupid football in hand (do you know how hard it is to carry a 40lb child, bundled up, along with yourself bundled, with a FULL SIZED FOOTBALL), walk across the street in 14 degrees. Claire is dragging (obviously did not sleep much with Aunt Tara), Owen crying as he wants to kick the football across the street...

12. Get up to the garage, put in the code...doesn't work. Try again, doesn't work. THE GARAGE DOOR CODE THINGY DOES NOT WORK AND I DO NOT HAVE A KEY. IT IS IN THE HOUSE! Both kids are bawling at this point as they are COOOOOOOLLLLLDDDD!

13. Walk back across the street to Mom's, completely numb. (Thank God Mom lives across the street)

14. Call Shane to find out he can not let us in for awhile. Our van was in the garage, couldn't go get it, and we did not have car seats to go with Mom (plus the roads were bad).

15. Owen falls asleep on Mom. Claire falls asleep watching Spongebob.

16. I eat my weight in Twix.

17. 2 hours later, Shane comes home and lets us in.

18. We get home, kids are insanely wild, they got their naps.

19. I am working in my office. Owen is running around with a football helmet on backwards, Claire is putting her baby to bed.

20. Suddenly I hear INSANELY loud pulsing static! Then I hear Owen screaming bloody murder!!!

21. I run out of my office into Owen on his way there, football helmet over his eyes and he has no idea where he is going. He is scared to death and I still don't know where the sound is coming from. He is holding a large pole (don't even know where it came from).

22. Holding the howling monkey, I walk up the TV and realize the TV is making this LOUD sound. I turn it off. Owen has completely lost his mind and is pulling my hair trying to keep me from touching the TV.

23. I turn the TV back on and it is fine. I am pretty sure the pole had something to do with it.

24. Owen will not go into the living room now. He goes upstairs with Claire, who somehow was oblivious to the racket downstairs.

25. 5 minutes later, both kids are bawling.

26. I run upstairs to Claire holding her head crying and Owen laying on the ground, with a handful of Claire's hair, crying so hard, he is not making sounds.

27. After much persuasion from Claire, I find out, Owen was "not playing the game right" and she would not play. So he pulled her hair and she proceeded to punch him in the stomach.

28. It is only 4:30...what else is to come!!!???

Is it wrong that I am craving a margarita???!!! Poor baby, he or she is hearing this chaos and thinking "What in the world have I gotten myself into??!!" =) Hmmm I wonder if it will look like this....

or this...

What do you think?? Here's to a better night with a Lemon Lime slush from Sonic...non alcoholic!

School Mornings...

The scene: Me and Claire on our way to preschool this morning. We woke up late this morning, Claire and I fought over what she was going to wear, Owen ran around half naked the entire time and Mama was nauseous the whole time trying to keep down the plain waffle she had for breakfast. Good times. We quickly get in the car, I make 3 different trips inside to get the many different things we were forgetting including her coat as it was 14 degrees.

So by the time we were on the road, the car was silent except for the Brittney Spears CD playing. You see, I only get to listen to music in the car when Owen is not riding. He insists on watching "Little Giants" for the gazillionth time on the TVs in the van. Claire could care less, and she was pretty much pissed this morning anyway as she had on the dress that she DID NOT want to wear.

I am half way to school and we are listening to "Radar", I start feeling like a bad Mom (and the nausea started to subside, so I became Rachel again, rather than the Pregnant Monster). I looked back and Claire looked completely bored and zoned out as we were not talking. So I turned the music way down...

Mama: "Claire, are you ready for school today? Are you going to be good and learn your new letter today?"
Claire: "Yes Mom. Would you please turn the music back up? I am trying to learn the words to this song."

She was not zoned out she was zoning in on learning the song. Let's just hope she did not sing this all day at school...

Owen found a paint pen last week. Did you know that paint pens will not wash off? I didn't...at least not off O. Below are pics of him after the incident...sorry he is in pjs =).
Have a good week!!! Entering 6 weeks tomorrow!

We Love Aunt Nicole!

So last month on the 17th was my baby sister Nicole's birthday, her 22nd!! With all the chaos of Christmas, I decided to wait until after the first of the year so that the Happy Birthday post would not get lost in the shuffle!!

We are so proud of Nicole as she is in her last semester of Nursing school!!! We are sad as we do not get to see her as much as she goes to school an hour away =(....but she is fixing to graduate and we could not be more excited to have her home!! My perfect scenario would be for her to be working in the hospital when I have this baby. Claire looks so much like Nicole and I sometimes have flashbacks to when we were little and I used to mother Nic when Claire makes a certain expression.

We are so proud of her and what she has accomplished and the strong woman she has become!!!! Here is a quick funny story about Nic...

When we were younger (I was probably 16, Tara was 14 and Nicole was 10), our grandmother on our Dad's side came in town and gave each of us a rather large check!! We were so excited and as you would expect of us girls (me and Tara), running around screaming as Mom told us we could spend it on whatever we wanted!!!! Tara and I were discussing all the many, clothes, shoes, purses, ect we planned to buy. We were so excited and all over the place, Nicole was just sitting on the fireplace, just as quiet and calm. Mom asked her "Nicole, what are you going to buy?". Nicole replied, very calmly "I am going to buy an Easy Bake Oven.".

We all laughed and still do every time we remember this story! So, guess what Nicole got Claire for her birthday this year...

So...we love you Nicole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Owen's First Day of Preschool

Shane and I decided Owen needed to get out of the house and have more interaction with other kids. Gymnastics is over as he was only tackling children rather than attempting any exercise and he was only getting child interaction at Church on Sundays (besides playing with Claire and his cousins). So we decided to go ahead and enroll him in the same Sonshine School as Claire, but only one day a week. The best part, Lane was his teacher!! He was beside himself excited as he got to go to "shkool" with Claire! I was actually pretty good about it, I didn't know how I would react to leaving him from 9-1. But I think being pregnant and needing some rest, helped me be okay with it =). And he didn't cry or anything, just walked right in and loved it. Lane even sent me a picture of him from her cell, he was just sitting at the table with his new friends, hands folded and paying attention...that did make me cry! So my baby is now a big school boy and had so much fun...I held my breath that he would hurt someone and he did just fine!! Here are some pictures of the kids on his first day of school...


Owen has hit this stage where he needs a drink in hand at ALL times. He now takes one to bed. This was one of those mornings...
Owen and Claire - She was excited for him to go too!! I took her to class first and as I was leaving with Owen to take him to his class, she says to me "Tell them that he needs to learn his ABC's, how to potty, and how to be nice, okay?". Priceless...

"Smile Owen, good job Claire! Owen put your drink down."Then I took the drink =)....look at Claire still smiling, such a pro =)!Now we are good =)....and we are adding one more to this bunch....pass me a donut =).

Hope you are having a good weekend!!!!!!