Welcome to my world

John Paul Taylor

2009-09-07T04:54:00.007-04:00

Part 1

This last week was really tough! Not only was I having contractions off and on, but I also started getting sick. It started last weekend. I just felt like I was trying to fight off a head cold but by Wednesday, I was totally congested. It really made sleep impossible. I had my weekly checkup on Wednesday and was a little encouraged by the doctor who said I was at 2 1/2 cm. Progression is always good. I was just praying that the baby would hold off until after Friday morning so I wouldn't have to miss a very important meeting. I woke up Friday and barely had a voice. All the sinus drainage started the cough. After we finished up our meeting, I had this feeling that I was going to have the baby that day. I even mentioned in my FB status that I was "willing" the baby out that day, LOL. I guess I got my wish. I was in the middle of doing laundry (because I had this feeling) and went out to the garage to get the clothes out of the dryer when I felt like I might have sprung a leak. I was already wearing a pad because I had been spotting so I wasn't quite sure. While I was walking back to the bathroom, it became pretty apparent that it was still leaking so I called Don and my parents and started getting some things together because no, I did not have a bag packed yet, LOL. When my parents got there, my mom really wanted to drive me to the hospital but I wanted to wait for Don to get home. There were several things about this delivery that didn't go as planned and this was the first one...my water springing a leak and I wasn't having contractions to go along with it. I knew they would end up inducing me and that would screw up my plans for trying to deliver without an epidural. So while I was waiting for Don to get home, I was sitting at the dining room table when I thought of something else I needed to pack. I went to stand up and as soon as I did, whoosh...my water came gushing out. Yuck...that's all I have to say about that, LOL. At least it happened at home and not in the car and at least my parents were there to bring me towels and to answer Joshua's questions. I had to bring towels with us because I kept leaking every time I tried to walk.

Part 2

We had to stop at triage when we first got to the hospital. They treated me like I had the swine flu because of the way I sounded. They kept asking if I had been in contact with anyone with HN1, etc. Then they had to put masks on their faces just in case. Thankfully, that was just in triage. They made me wear a mask while they were transporting me to Labor and Delivery but I was able to take it off as soon as we got in our room. None of the nurses in labor and delivery wore "the" mask. They get me hooked up to everything and then started the pitocin. After they upped the dose the second time, I went ahead and asked for the epidural. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the pain. I think they checked me again around 11:30 or so and I was at 4-5 cm dilated. Then we played the waiting game. They kept upping the pitocin. I started shaking uncontrollably. I thought it was because of the epidural since I've had problems with the shakes with each of my pregnancies but later found out it was just because I was cold...really cold. I was also running a fever so that's probably why I was so cold. I had the room temperature at 85 degrees, LOL. The nurse kept asking me if I was starting to get hot. I think I was sweating them out, LOL. I started wondering when they were going to check me again around 1:30pm. I was curious to see how dilated I was and how much longer this was going to take. It was past my bedtime, LOL. They finally checked me a little after two and said I was fully dilated. They started getting stuff together and notified my doctor. They had to set up the stirups because the epidural made my legs totally numb and I couldn't move them at all. After they got everything together, got my legs in the stirups, took half of the bed apart, then they finally started having me start pushing. There were just the two nurses in the room with us. I probably pushed for maybe 6 or 7 contractions when they could see the head and told me not to push anymore. Even during pushing, the nurse asked me if I was getting hot and I kept telling them no. Then the nurse went to get the doctor. After the doctor came in, I think I pushed through 2 more contractions and John Paul Taylor was born at 3:22am. He was perfect and I was able to feed him fairly quickly after giving birth. He latched on right away and we had no feeding problems! The hospital was really crowded and they didn't have any rooms available in the post pardom section so I had to stay in Labor and Delivery overnight. Don and my mom went home to get some sleep after they took the baby to the nursery for his bath and assesments, etc.

Part 3

I dozed off for a little while but the nurse came back in to check on me...blood pressure, temp, etc. It was around 6am and I asked the nurse if they were going to bring the baby back to me or if I had to request him because I thought I needed to feed him soon. This is where everything got screwy. Of course in my defense I was really tired and really hungry (the last time I ate was at lunch on Friday). The nurse told me that I would have to feed the baby by 7:45am and that shift change was at 7am so they would bring him over after shift change unless I wanted him now. I said that it would be ok for them to bring him over after shift change so I could maybe sleep another hour first. 7:45 comes and they still hadn't brought the baby to me so I called the nursery. Of course I have no voice so it was pretty difficult. After I asked for them to bring me the baby, they told me they were just getting ready to do the assement on him and they would bring him over after he's done. About 30 minutes later, the phone in my room rings. It's the nursery telling me that when they did his assesment, his temperature was low so they had to stick him under the heat lamp to get his temperature back up. Then they checked his blood sugar and it was low so they wanted my permission to give him some formula to bring it back up. I was really upset about this because I didn't feel like I had any choice but to let them do it. The nurse said that if they didn't get his blood sugar back up, he would have to go to the NICU. The part that I was angry about was I think the whole thing could have been avoided if they would have just brought him to me to let me feed him instead of waiting so long. He ended up spitting up the formula a little later after they brought him to my room...good for him, LOL. He was spitting up a little the rest of the day and I swear it was formula and not colostrum that was coming back up. As long as he was awake, he did great eating. However, there were at least two times that I just couldn't wake him for nothing. I was thinking to myself that if we were home, I would be getting some good sleep right now, LOL. But we were not home; we were in the hospital where they pester and bug you for all kinds of things and if you go over that 4-5 hr. max for feeding, they take the baby away to check his blood sugar. They had to check his blood sugar two other times but he was fine thank goodness. So I was awake; trying to wake the baby. I felt like crap from being sick. They started me on anti-biotics and by Sunday I was blowing all kinds of "stuff" out of my nose. I probably had a sinus infection. It's now Monday and I have my voice back (most of the way) so I sound much better. Now if I could just get some sleep...yeah right, LOL.

So that's the birth story. Here's a few pictures of John Paul:

Rome...Paul and the Underground Church

2009-06-26T20:46:00.003-04:00

Today was the last day for VBS and I'm so glad it's finally over! Don't get me wrong. The kids had a blast and the program this year was awesome. However, being a volunteer when you are 6 months pregnant was probably not the best idea for me, LOL. My feet have been swollen the past 3 days. Even though it was a little stressful having to memorize my lines each night and hard being on my feet all day, I really did enjoy myself. Our program this year was Rome (http://www.group.com/vbs/rome/). For some reason, Blogger wouldn't let me link the site because it didn't end in .com. My character was Lucia in the Underground Church. Since I was in MD up until the day before VBS, I didn't have anything to do with decorating. The guy that made the cave for the underground church did an awesome job! I tried to take some pictures but the pictures just doesn't do it justice. If I used the flash, it was too bright and it didn't look as realistic but if I turned the flash off, it just looked black with an orange light from the torch. I will post pictures anyway at the end. I wished I took more pictures because we were all in costume. They were taking pictures the whole week but I'm not sure if I'll have access to them or not. They are going to do a slide show tomorrow night at the 6pm Mass.

Last year, the program we used was the Rainforest. Shawn had fun last year but I don't think he really learned much from it. This year though he was very excited to tell me about the abacus in the grammatical shop and how to use it. He was also very proud of the scroll he brought home that he wrote the Roman alphabet on. He could tell me the bible point each day which I was very impressed with. He would tell me about Brutus each day and the games they played in the Apprenticeship games.

I also got to see how excited the kids were each day. Every day, 2 to 3 "families" would go see Paul and Brutus. Paul would always teach them the bible point and make sure to tell the kids to tell his other Christian friends what he said. When they came to the underground church, we would ask them what Paul said today which would get the kids to repeat the bible point again. Of course we would always get all kinds of other information too, LOL. The script was great. Brutus is a Roman Guard that is chained to Paul so he can't escape. By the end of the week, Brutus is converted to a Christian. On Wednesday, Brutus was sleeping when the kids came in to see Paul. He woke up startled because of a dream and then was embarrassed that he had fell asleep on duty. He was very impressed that the kids didn't try to help Paul escape while he was asleep and that begins his conversion. My favorite day was on Thursday. In the underground church, I had to tell the kids that the Roman soldiers almost caught Marcus but he ran away and I didn't know where he was. I had a lot more dialog and questions to ask the kids and then I hushed the kids and told them that I heard someone outside the cave. That's when we played the soldiers sound clip on the CD. The dialog was actually kind of funny but it still scared some of the younger kids. One of the soldiers wanted to search the cave but the other one talked him out of it because it was dark and dirty and he didn't want to get bit by rats. They ended up walking away talking about finding Marcus. When it was time for the kids to leave, there were several that didn't want to leave the cave because they thought the soldiers were still out there, LOL. Today, I snuck behind Paul's house to hear what was going on and the kids were really excited to talk about the soldiers almost finding them. They all cheered when Brutus announced that he was a Christian now. When they came over to the underground church, they couldn't wait to tell us that Brutus was a Christian. They also couldn't wait to tell us that Brutus had to shovel horse "stuff" at the Emperors stables now. I didn't really get a chance to see much of the Market but besides making some crafts, they actually learned what it was like to live in Rome during that time. There were dramas every day but most of them happened in the Market so I didn't get to see them. Yesterday, I know that someone stole a loaf of bread because they didn't have any money to pay for it and today the Roman Soldiers closed down the Metal Shop because they found out the owner was a Christian.

I think next year our Church is going to do Egypt which has to do with Joseph's journey from prison to palace and is by the same company that did Rome. I can't wait! Here's the pictures of my cave:

This is the entrance to the cave. At the end of the "hallway" you would enter the cave to the right.

The back wall of the cave

A close up of one of the torches. It actually had a flickering light bulb inside and looked really realistic in the dark.

They posted the pictures of VBS on our Church website. Click here and here to see more pictures.

Shawn's Flat Stanley Project

2009-05-22T08:12:00.005-04:00

Shawn's class had to do a Flat Stanley project over spring break. If you are not familiar with Flat Stanley, Flat Stanley is a childrens book where the main character gets flattened by a billboard. He's not hurt though and is able to travel around the world in an envelope. So Shawn had to color and cut out his own Flat Stanley and send it to someone in a different town so Flat Stanley could see the sights. Shawn chose to send his Flat Stanley to his cousins Jeremy and Chris. They did a great job taking pictures and showing Flat Stanley the sights in Ocean City, MD. We almost didn't have enough room to show all the pictures! First they took Flat Stanley to Assateague Island to see the wild ponies. I was jealous because even though I've grown up my entire life in MD and went to Ocean City at least once a year, I've never been to Assateague. I may make that a mission when I go up in June. After Assateague, they took Flat Stanley to the boardwalk and buried him in the sand, lol. They took him to see a new firefighter memorial which looked pretty neat. They have a piece of metal from one of the world trade center towers in NY along with a statue of a firefighter. The piece of metal is very powerful and really makes you remember that day! Then they took Flat Stanley to Home Depot and Dunkin Donuts before taking him to the Berlin Fire Department to end their tour. We are so grateful for Jeremy and Chris to help us out with Shawn's project and of course their mother, Kandi, who took the pictures and drove them around. Thanks guys! Shawn was really excited to see the pictures and we had fun making the poster. Shawn made the title on the poster, helped place a few of the pictures, and made all the labels on the label maker and placed them on the poster himself. It turned out really good and he was so proud. Here's a couple pictures we took before we turned in the project (I had to use flip pages to get all the pictures on there so unfortunately all the pictures aren't shown). Enjoy!

Garden update

2009-05-17T13:30:00.004-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I have no excuse but I'm going to blame Facebook, LOL. Anyway, I thought it was time to share some new garden pictures and report on our progress. Let me first say that we are beginners. I have no idea what I'm doing with this garden; just kind of winging it. The first tomato plant is looking pretty good. It finally has 3 little blooms on it so we hope to see little tomatoes soon. The second tomato plant was transplanted and it doesn't look as healthy as the first one but it keeps growing anyway so we'll see. My green bean plants started off looking the healthiest of them all but something started eating the leaves in the last 2 weeks. I seriously have to spray them with the organic insect spray my friends husband recommended. They do have lots of green beans on them though so I think we had success with this plant. I'll have to let you know how they tasted since I haven't pulled any off yet. My carrots look like they are doing pretty good. I have a few scallions that look like they are healthy. I used to have more but don't know what happened to them...something ate them maybe? The two types of lettuce I planted never germinated. Neither did the oregano or basil. I planted some beets later than everything else and I have a few things growing in the square I planted them in but I have no idea if they are beets or weeds, lol. I'll give it a little longer to see how they look. We also have a marigold plant that Shawn brought home in a little paper cup from school. It looked pitiful but we planted it anyway and we finally have a flower! Here's what the garden looks like now:

The small blooms on our tomato plant

Lots of green beans!

Shawn's marigold plant and a close up of the lone flower

Pool time

2009-04-03T08:55:00.002-04:00

The weather has been really nice for the past few weeks now. Several times I have considered taking the kids to the pool because it was definitely that hot out. However, our pool is not heated so I was a little hesitant but yesterday I decided to brave it and take a chance. You know what? It wasn't that bad. Yes the water was a little chilly but it was bearable and you got used to it pretty quick. I'm so excited!!! I really want to spend lots of time in the pool. It wears the kids out and I don't have to think about how to keep them occupied. There is less fighting too so that's a plus. Just in time for Spring Break!!! Now I just need to buy Joshua some new bathing suits because his are a little small. He can still wear them until we get some new ones though.

Things are growing

2009-04-01T12:08:00.005-04:00

Last year during the fall, Don and I decided we wanted to grow some veggies. Neither one of us have ever had a garden before but I was determined to grow something. The cost of fruit and veggies at the store was getting ridiculous and unless you buy organic, you don't really know what's been sprayed and what you're eating. Since our yard isn't very big, we decided to do a square foot garden. We got everything set up last fall but then never planted anything :(

Well now it's spring and thanks to my friend Julie's husband David, we knew what to plant and got a few things into the ground. I'm so excited because I really didn't have high expectations for this planting season since it's our first time but we have a few things popping up. I just hope I can keep them alive until we can harvest our bounty. Here's a few pictures of our progress:

Shawn's second birthday party...picture heavy

2009-03-15T21:55:00.009-04:00

Well Shawn's birthday party was a success! We had about 8 kids show up plus a brother and a friend of my cousin. The kids had a ball!!! I highly recommend having a party at Oakfield Lanes. It was so cheap compared to other places we have looked at in the past. Best part is you only pay for how many bowlers are there instead of paying for say 15 bowlers and then only 9 show up, you pay for 9 instead of the 15 you made a reservation for. The party was 2 hours long and the shoes were included plus pizza and drinks and we only paid around $120 (we ordered extra pizza and drinks). Here are a few pictures from his party:

Shawn's Batman Cake

We had quite a few balls going backwards, lol

The end of the soccer season

2009-03-15T10:54:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was Shawn's last soccer game of the season. It's bitter sweet. I love him playing soccer and he has so much fun but it gets old going to practice twice a week and then a game on Saturday especially when I'm the one that has to take him. Of course Joshua is bored out of his mind while we are there too which makes my job even harder. So it's the end of soccer until next fall/winter. Shawn's team colors are turquoise and navy blue so I went out and bought some blue spray hair color. We brought the can with us in case anyone else wanted their hair blue. At first, only one other boy wanted to color his hair. After they were practicing for a while, another boy decided to color his hair. So we had 3 players out of 8 with blue hair. Then the assistant coach's son (age 3)wanted his hair colored but would only do it if his dad did it. I guess that's all it took because at half time, the rest of the team came running over and wanted their hair colored. I should have bought 2 cans because we ran out before all the kids got their hair colored. So we ended up with 6 out of 8 players, the assistant coach, Joshua and the assistant coach's son all with blue hair, lol. Here are some pictures from the game:

Joshua with his blue mohawk

After the game, eating cupcakes and watching Coach open his card.

Blue icing to match the blue hair.

Handing out the trophies.

Last team picture.

Klutz

2009-03-13T21:01:00.003-04:00

I'm such a klutz! This morning when Don went to wake up Shawn for school, he told me that it smelled like poop in their room. Well, I thought the whole house stunk and had a hard time believing it was seeping out of the kids room, lol. I even made Don take out the trash because I wasn't convinced that's where the smell was coming from. At 8am, Joshua was still sleeping which isn't like him at all and I didn't want his schedule to get screwed up so I woke him up. OMG, the smell coming from that room. I can't believe Don said he THOUGHT he smelled poop. Anyway, I change Joshua's diaper and when I was in the process of throwing the diaper away I got a whiff and that was all it took to start the gagging. I almost threw up...had to go out to the garage for fresh air, lol. When I came back inside, I grabbed some air freshener and went right to the bedroom and started spraying. I was walking backwards not paying attention to where I was going when I walked into a step stool in the hallway (it's normally in the bathroom, not sure what it was doing in the hallway but I'm blaming Don, lol) and started falling backwards so I put my left arm down to break my fall. Oh the pain. I did something to it but not sure what. I didn't go to the doctors because after it happened, I was still able to move my arm. I couldn't bend it all the way without it hurting but I could move it in almost all directions and could bend it most of the way. I figured it wasn't broken so what would the doctors be able to do anyway. Well now it really hurts. I can barely move it. I'm kind of regretting not going to the doctors but I'm going to stick it out this weekend and if it still hurts on Monday then I will make an appointment. Not sure how I'm going to blow dry my hair in the morning.

Shawn's birthday

2009-03-08T22:32:00.002-04:00

So yesterday was Shawn's birthday. We didn't really do anything special. We just had a family party at our house. My parents came over to help celebrate and we had pizza and sang happy birthday with cupcakes. Next week is the big party. Shawn wanted to have a bowling party this year. So now he has something to look forward to. Here's a few pictures that really show how excited he was:

Do I really need a title for every post?

2009-03-02T22:19:00.002-05:00

I'm a little sore today. Guess from what??? Give up? I am sore from mopping my floor. Yes, you heard me right...I'm so out of shape that mopping a floor makes me sore, lol. However, I'm very proud of myself of what I got accomplished. I've been feeling sick for so long that the house was starting to fall in around me because God forbid someone else picks up around here. I felt pretty good this weekend so I took advantage of it. Now I have an almost clean house. My bedroom could definitely use some attention now. The bedroom is hard because we don't have much room in this house so our bedroom also became our office. So it is a catch all.

Saturday, we had a busy morning. I took the kids to pet some baby goats at Joshua's Kindermusik teacher's house. They were so cute and the kids enjoyed chasing them around. Shawn tried his best to catch one but didn't have any luck. He did however get to hold one before we left. Then it was off to Shawn's soccer game. Boy was it hot. The heat started to get to me a little bit and I started feeling a little sick but I made it through the game. I even ended up with a little bit of sunburn. Actually, I'm not sure if I would call it a burn...a little pink one day, tan the next, lol. I can't wait to hang out at the pool this year.

The problem with the homeless

2009-02-23T22:11:00.002-05:00

I hope this doesn't offend anyone because I truly feel for the homeless but...I don't like to see them begging on the street. There are places to go to get free food. I'm not sure if there are many places to sleep here though. I just don't trust the people that are standing on the corner. You see the same people there and sometimes they have crutches or a wheelchair and sometimes they don't. I wonder why I don't trust them, lol. I don't have money to give to everyone that's on the corner with a sign. I will donate food to my church's food pantry though. The reason for this post is because of the increase in beggers recently. I remember when we first moved here, I hardly saw any homeless. There might have been one or two in Brandon near the Walmart but that was it. Now they are everywhere; on every corner and I can only imagine how much worse it's going to get with the economy the way it is.

Surprise!

2009-02-20T09:49:00.002-05:00

Boy, did we get a surprise last night. I wish we had a camera running to catch it on film, lol.

We have a home security system installed in our house but we don't have service for it. It came with the house. I've always let Joshua play with the buttons for it because we don't have service and I didn't think it would harm anything. Well, last night he must have pushed some buttons in just the right way because it set off an alarm. This thing was louder than our fire alarm. The funny part was we had no idea how to shut the stupid thing off. After trying numerous buttons, Don finally got out a ladder and pulled the wires out of the alarm, lol. My ears were ringing for a little while after it shut off, lol. Oh well, lesson learned.

it's that time of year again...

2009-02-18T11:00:00.003-05:00

Ash Wednesday is next week. The start of Lent...I can't believe it's already been a year already! This year has flown by! This season of Lent will be a little different for me. I will still abstain from meat but I won't be fasting due to my pregnancy. I'm not sure what I'm going to give up yet but I'm leaning towards Facebook. I spend entirely too much time on FB, LOL. So it's time to start reflecting and I really need to go to confession. Guess what? It's still difficult to make myself go! I thought after going last year, that I would go to confession once a month but sadly it hasn't happened. I think I will try and go this weekend and just get it over with.

Things That Are Not Fun...

2009-02-04T20:44:00.002-05:00

There are several things that are not fun when you are pregnant and have morning sickness. Number 1 is cleaning up puke. Shawn was sick this week. Seems he had the flu but made a very quick recovery. Unfortunately, I still had to clean puke out of a pitcher. At least it wasn't on the floor, lol. Number 2 is, well, I'm starting to have problems with some smells lately. Syrup and ketchup are two big ones that I can't handle. Well today, I made the kids hotdogs for lunch. I left Joshua strapped into his booster chair for about one minute. When I came back, he had ketchup smeared all over his face and hair. I had to give him a bath it was that bad. I was gagging the entire time. Not fun! Can't wait for my second trimester to get here!

It's about time I updated

2009-01-30T05:49:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog so I figured now was as good as any. I will try to do better in the future. It's not like I didn't have anything to blog about, it was just that I simply didn't feel like it, lol.

Anywho, I have some big news to share with everyone. A few have already guessed, and a few saw #25 on Facebook, but for those that are still in the dark, I'm pregnant. We did not plan this pregnancy but we weren't exactly preventing either. I'm very happy of course. Don was kind of like "oh crap" at first but now he's fine and we are both very excited. Please send some pink vibes my way because I think this is my last chance for a girl. I would try again in a heart beat but I know Don is against 4 kids so I will have to accept this one as my last. I have a sonogram next week to determine the due date but as of right now, they are saying Sept. 21st.

Tagged

2008-12-16T15:35:00.002-05:00

My friend Holly tagged me. Here's the rules:

Go into your photo file folder.
Choose the 4th photo file within that folder.
And from that 4th file, choose your 4th photo.
Then share the photo and the memory that goes along with it.

This picture was in my April 2005 folder. It was at a BAM playdate. Look how little Hannah is. Isn't she a cutie???

The Banyan Tree

2008-11-09T22:35:00.006-05:00

So the kids and I took advantage of Cypress Gardens $5.00 admissions today. The weather was perfect! We went to church last night so we could get to the park as soon as it opened. It didn't start getting crowded until about 2pm and we were all most ready to leave by then. We didn't eat until around 1pm and decided to find a quiet spot in the gardens to eat especially since I brought our food and you aren't supposed to bring food into the park, lol. Afterward, my dad took Shawn on some more rides and my mom, Joshua, and I took a walk around the gardens. This was my 3rd time at Cypress Gardens but only my first time touring the gardens. Imagine my surprise when I saw this huge tree called the Banyan Tree. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Ummm, yes that is all one tree. It's even bigger than what I could fit into the pictures. Pretty neat! Here's some more pictures of our day:

Chuck E Cheese

2008-11-07T16:18:00.001-05:00

We haven't been to Chuck E Cheese in a very long time but today, Joshua yelled out Chuck E Cheese as we passed it. Scary! The only thing I can think of is that he picked it up from Shawn who announces everytime we pass it.

Halloween 2008

2008-11-01T10:12:00.003-04:00

I remember how much I loved Halloween when I was a kid. I usually made my own costume and loved decorating the house. I'm not sure when that changed. I still dressed up as an adult to hand out candy. I love Halloween but I think since having kids something happened. I think it must have something to do with time. I have Halloween decorations (some) sitting in my garage and never put them up. I'm not sure why. Shawn asked me about them twice and I told him not right now (it actually wasn't good times) but I never made the effort to get them put up. Oh well, there's always next year.

Shawn was Obi Wan Kenobi and Joshua was a golfer. They were both very excited about going TOTing. When I picked up Shawn from the bus, he told me how excited he was. I told him I was too but he said no, not because of Halloween, he was excited because Mrs. Howard gave him the books we ordered from Scholastic. That's my boy, lol. Last year, I bought a flashlight that made all kinds of spooky sounds but forgot to use. I made sure to get it out this year and the boys played with it until dinner. We finally got them dressed and took some pictures and then it was off to go TOTing. Our first stop was our next door neighbor and their daughter answered as a witch. She had a mask on and Joshua was not too keen about it. He was a little leary to go up to anymore houses after that. Someone pretty much had to carry him. That got a little old. I took Joshua back to the house a little early (I was getting a little chilly anyway). Since the boys can't eat candy on the diet that we're on, I got them little cheap toys and put them into halloween pumpkins to exchange for the candy. Shawn also got a Lego Star Wars toy since he was a little harder to convince about giving up the candy. So anyway, here's some pictures from last night:

It's cold!!!

2008-10-29T15:15:00.002-04:00

Since I'm not a Florida native, I usually don't complain about it being cold. However, this morning was cold!!! It doesn't usually get cold like this until January around here. I was expecting it to be cold but not that cold, lol. It was still 37 degrees outside around 9am when Joshua and I went to the store. We wore winter coats but by the time we were on our way home, we stripped them off. I checked the temp. once we got home and it was 54 degrees, much better.

We had a frog sitting right in the middle of our sidewalk when we woke up this morning. We think he went into hibernation mode because it was so cold. Don tried to get him to jump away but the thing wouldn't move. It was still there when Joshua and I went to the store. When we came back, it had moved to the side of the sidewalk but wasn't moving. When we went to get Shawn from the bus stop, it was gone.

All my friends have been posting which candidate their child voted for in school. Shawn voted on Tuesday but he didn't say anything about it so I asked him today who he voted for. He told me he voted for McCain. When I asked him why, he said because he's the best, lol. Then I asked him what makes him the best and he told me because he is really nice. We haven't really discussed politics with him at all so I'm not sure how he thinks McCain is nice, lol.

Flashback

2008-10-25T18:10:00.005-04:00

I have saved a lot of things from my childhood. One thing that I saved is this:

My collection of 45 RPM records. It's kind of embarrassing to look at. I can't believe I used to listen to some of these, lol. For all you youngsters, this was before MP3, CD's, and cassette tapes, lol. I'm going to list the contents without leaving any out no matter how embarrassing it is. Enjoy!

The first record I pulled out was Pat Benatar - side A "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", side B Prisoner of Love
* Men at Work - side A Down Under, side B Crazy
* Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - side A I Love Rock 'N Roll, side B You Don't Know What You've Got
* John Cougar - side A Jack & Diane, side B Can You Take It
* Go-Go's - side A We Got The Beat, side B Can't Stop The World
* Joe Jackson - side A Steppin' Out, side B Chinatown
* The Manhattan Transfer - side A Boy From New York City, side B (The Word Of) Confirmation
* Pointer Sisters - side A He's So Shy, side B Fire
* Olivia Newton-John - side A Physical, side B The Promise
* Duran Duran - side A & B Hungry Like The Wolf
* Steve Miller Band - side A ABRACADABRA, side B Baby Wanna Dance
* Rick Springfield - side A Jessie's Girl, side B Carry Me Away
* Duran Duran - side A Rio, side B Hold Back The Rain
* Blondie - side A The Tide Is High, side B Suzy And Jeffrey
* Sheena Easton - side A Morning Train, side B Calm Before The Storm
* Juice Newton - side A Queen Of Hearts, side B River Of Love
* The Human League - side A Don't You Want Me, side B Seconds
* The J. Geils Band - side A Centerfold, side B Rage In The Cage
* Laura Branigan - side A Gloria, side B Living a Lie
* Olivia Newton-John - side A Twist Of Fate, side B Take A Chance
* Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson - side A Say Say Say, side B Ode To A Koala Bear
* Phil Collins - side A You Can't Hurry Love, side B Do You Know, Do You Care?
* The Romantics - side A Talking In Your Sleep, side B I'm Hip
* Talking Heads - side A Burning Down The House, side B I Get Wild/Wild Gravity
* USA For Africa - side A We Are The World, side B Quincy Jones - Grace
* Billy Ocean - side A Suddenly, side B Lucky Man
* Journey - side A Separate Ways, side B Frontiers
* Styx - side A Don't Let It End, side B Rockin' The Paradise
* Paul Davis - side A '65 Love Affair, side B We're Still Together
* Survivor - side A Eye Of The Tiger, side B Take You On A Saturday
* Mathew Wilder - side A & B Break My Stride
* Limahl- side A The NeverEnding Story, side B Ivory Tower
* Joey Scarbury - side A The Theme From "The Greatest American Hero", side B That Little Bit Of Us
* Quiet Riot - side A Cum On Feel The Noize, side B Run For Cover
* Bonnie Tyler - side A Total Eclipse Of The Heart, side B Straight From The Heart
* David Lee Roth - side A & B Just A Gigolo I Ain't Got Nobody
* Air Supply - side A Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, side B Late Again
* Survivor - side A I Can't Hold Back, side B I see You In Everyone
* Dirty Dancing - side A (I've Had) The Time Of My Life, side B Love Is Strange
* Bee Gees - side A You Win Again, side B Backtafunk
* George Michael - side A & B Monkey
* Prince - side A You Got The Look, side B HouseQuake
* Aerosmith - side A Angel, side B Girl Keeps Coming Apart
* Elton John - side A Candle In The Wind, side B Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
* The Nylons - side A Kiss Him Goodbye, side B It's What They Call Magic
* Toto - side A Pamela, side B The Seventh One
* Bangles - side A Hazy Shade Of Winter, side B Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - She's Lost You
* Chris De Burgh - side A The Lady In Red, side B The Vision
* 38 Special - side A Teacher Teacher, side B Twentieth Century Fox
* Chicago - side A If She Would Have Been Faithful..., side B Forever
* Billy Ocean - side A & B Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)

On my behalf, I'm pretty sure all of these were purchased before I got out of elementary school. My taste in music definitely got better as I got older, lol.

I'm kinda addicted

2008-10-23T23:12:00.002-04:00

58%

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

That's about what I figured. Taken from Melodie's blog

I can't wait until tomorrow!

2008-10-18T07:21:00.001-04:00

The temperature is only supposed to reach 73 degrees! I can't wait!

I've been tagged:

2008-10-18T07:10:00.002-04:00

My friend, Andrea, tagged me with this Meme:

Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book.
Find the closest book...Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one. Pick the CLOSEST. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences on your blog along with these instructions. Tag five other people to do the same.

I have a stack of books right in front of me so I picked the book that was on top. My book is Gut and Psychology Syndrome: We know that some of the toxins, which are produced by abnormal gut flora, have the chemical structure of opiates, like morphine and heroin. If the baby gets these opiates in the breast milk then it is quite understandable why the baby falls asleep after the first few mouthfuls. Another reason for the baby to refuse breast is milk allergy.

I'm supposed to tag 5 other people but I'm just not in the mood so if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

Conversation with Shawn

2008-10-17T17:48:00.001-04:00

Shawn: who is Joshua going to marry?
Me: I don't know.
Shawn: I think I'm going to marry Sophia.
Me: The Sophia in your class or the Sofia on your bus?
Shawn: The Sophia in my class.
Me: I like that Sophia. I like her mom too.
Shawn: But why does she always try to kiss me?
Me: I guess she likes you too.
Shawn: But I don't want her to kiss me.
Me: Tell her you don't want her to kiss you.
Shawn: I did tell her but she keeps trying to kiss me anyway.

Walking

2008-10-14T19:43:00.002-04:00

Today, Joshua and I took a walk around the neighborhood. He rode in the stroller and told me which way to go. After a while, I suggested to him that we walk to the playground (in the neighborhood). We played there for a little while until I saw these dark clouds rolling in. I hurried Joshua back in the stroller and started back home praying the whole time not to get rained on. It did sprinkle on us but the heavens never opened up. Thank you God! When we got back, I felt so good. I really miss walking. I really enjoyed it when Andrea and I used to meet up for the stroller walks. I need to get in the habbit of doing it on a daily basis and now that the weather is starting to cool off a bit, I have no excuse. Best part about it - it's free, lol.

I want to live in a trailer...

2008-10-13T18:43:00.002-04:00

That's what Shawn says everytime we pass the senior trailer park on Mt. Carmel Rd. Just what every mom wants to hear her son say, lol.

2008-10-08T20:14:00.005-04:00

Tagged...

I was tagged by my friend, Andrea, with this Meme:

The rules are, you have to answer with only one word. Then pass it on to 7 others.

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Where is your significant other? couch
3. Your hair color? brown
4. Your mother? paranoid
5. Your father? helpful
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your dream/goal? Heaven
9. The room you're in? bedroom
10. Your hobby? blogging
11. Your fear? bugs!!!
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Home
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you’re not? lonely
15. One of your wish list items? Tempurpedic
16. Where you grew up? Linthicum
17. The last thing you did? typed
18. What are you wearing? pjs
19. Your TV? on
20. Your pet? none
21. Your computer? crappy
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? yes
24. Your car? parked
25. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
26. Favorite store? book
27. Your summer? fun
28. Love someone? Absolutely
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? tonight
31. Last time you cried? Hmmm?

I pass this along to:
Kandee, Jen, Karlise, Scarlett, Brian, Angie, Sean

Greedy Company...

2008-10-07T07:47:00.003-04:00

I can't stand Classmates.com!!! They're just money hogs. They send you messages like guess who signed your guest book today. Come and see, but then you can't see unless you pay for a gold membership. MySpace is sooo much better. I wish more people would stop hating and resenting MySpace and get a MySpace page, lol.

The Chicks

2008-10-04T08:48:00.004-04:00

When I was in the 5th grade, we had to write and illustrate our own book. Then we had to read them to the kindergarten class. I had the chicken pox at the time so I didn't get to read mine. I still have the book I made. Want to see it? It's hard to read the words in the pictures so I'll type the words above the pictures. I couldn't fit the whole thing in the scanner because it was too long but here it is:

Once there lived a mother duck. She had just laid her eggs.

While mother duck was talking with her friends, one of her eight eggs hatched.

Then three more of her eight eggs hatched. Then the rest of her eight eggs hatched.

While mother duck was teaching her chicks to swim--- a little bear was spying on them.

While the little bear was spying on them from behind a rock, the chicks were having fun playing and running around.

A monkey saw the little bear---- and wondered what he was doing.

The monkey thought how hungry he was and that he could eat a bear. The little bear thought how hungry he was and that he would like to eat one of those little chicks for dinner.

All of a sudden, the monkey ate the little bear. The monkey wasn't hungry anymore. In fact.... he was so full and fat that he died.

And the chicks lived happily ever after.

My interview with Mr. Joseph Marsiglia

2008-10-03T18:53:00.002-04:00

This is a paper I wrote in school. I'm not sure which grade (maybe college?). In any case, I thought it would be fun to share. We had to interview someone that lived during The Great Depression. My paper got ripped to shreds for grammar, lol.

The person I interviewed was Mr. Joseph Marsiglia. Mr. Marsiglia was born on September 30, 1920 to his parents Mr. Guesippi Marsiglia and Mrs. Dominico Marsiglia. He became the youngest of their twelve children.

Mr. Marsiglia grew up in a three story row home in Baltimore City. He remembers the bedrooms were on the third floor and that he had to share a bed with two of his brothers. The furnace was in the basement and the basement had a dirt floor. One of his chores was to shovel the coal into the furnace and to clean up the ashes. He also remembers having an icebox. He said that everyone had a sign in their window that had either five, ten, or fifteen cents written on it. When the ice man came down the street, he would look at the signs to see how much ice to chip off. He said there was a tray where the water went when the ice melted and you had to keep it empty because if you didn't - it would overflow. The icebox couldn't keep things fresh so they would have to go to the market everyday to get eggs.

Mr. Marsiglia's father and brothers worked at the Lexington Market selling produce. Since it was their own business, they didn't have to worry about losing their jobs. All of his brothers and sisters were pulled out of school as soon as they could read and write to work at the market or to help at home. Mr. Marsiglia was the only child allowed to finish school. He did say that sometimes he would help his father at the market after school. His family always had food on the table. They didn't eat a lot of meat but they had plenty of pasta. Sometimes when he had money, he would go to the pet store and buy a pigeon as a pet for fifteen cents. He would only have it for a coulple of days and then it would disappear. He never knew what happened to them but now when he thinks back, after the pigeons disappeared, they had squab for dinner. "No wonder my parents didn't mind me buying them."

Mr. Marsiglia said that the Depression didn't affect his family that much. They could have made more money at the market and his father did lose money in the banks but they were doing a lot better then some people. Mr. Marsiglia remembers that one day he went to the bank to get change for his father but the banks were closed. He told me that was when FDR had closed the banks. Most of the people in his neighborhood had jobs so he never really witnessed poverty first hand.

When I asked him what his family did for entertainment, he said that his father and his brothers would go to work early in the morning and come home around 7:00. Then they would eat dinner and go to bed. Sunday was the only day they had off. They would go to church and then went to visit relatives. The men would play cards while the women talked and the children played. They also had picnics. That was what he did with his family but he said he played a lot with his friends. There were a lot of kids in his neighborhood and they would get together and play football and softball. They could buy a softball at the store for about ten cents. It wouldn't last long before it would fall apart and they would wrap it up with tape to keep it together. They would also go fishing and crabbing a lot. He said that you could ride the street cars all over Baltimore for only a nickel. they also had neighborhood gangs. He told me that if you left your part of the neighborhood by yourself, you were usually chased.

It seems that Mr. Marsiglia spent most of his time playing with his friends. He kept telling me about all the games they used to play. He went to the movies every Saturday with his friends. After the feature film they showed the serials and every week the hero would end up in a crash or fire but they would never die or lose their hats. His family had a radio but he told me the only good program was The Shadow. Another thing he remembered doing as a kid was to find two old cans and jump in the middle of them so the sides would fold over his shoes and stick. Then he would walk all around with cans on his shoes.

When I asked Mr. Marsiglia about blacks and prejudice in general, he told me that the street cars would not run in the black neighborhoods and that if blacks wanted to ride the street cars, they would have to sit in the back. He also went swimming with his friends and some of the pools they went to prohibited blacks and Jews. Mr. Marsiglia siad that sometimes they wouldn't let him in the pools because he had curly, black hair and they thought he was Jewish. There were also no blacks at the school he attended. He told me that one of his friends was robbed by three black boys. They had a police officer with them when they found the three blacks and started to chase them. They caught two of them and beat them up real bad and the police officer didn't even try to stop them.

Mr. Marsiglia's family didn't own a car. He told me that there were about eighty houses on a block and you were lucky if you saw twenty cars on the whole street. Everybody's clothes were old and most of it had holes. He remembers when they would get holes in the bottom of their shoes, they would cut a piece of cardboard to fit inside.

I had fun writing this paper and interviewing Mr. Marsiglia because I wasn't just talking to some old man, I was talking to my grandfather. I learned a lot more about him and his generation and I really began to imagine what it was like during the Depression.

Another thing I remember my grandfather telling me was that his whole neighborhood was Italian. Everyone spoke Italian and even though he was born in the U.S., he didn't learn English until he went to school. I'm not sure why I left that out of my paper.

The last day of September

2008-09-30T08:08:00.002-04:00

Shawn informed me this morning that today was the last day in September. You know what that means don't you...Star Wars the Clone Wars starts this Friday on the Cartoon Network. I told him a few days ago when it started after seeing a comercial for it but we haven't talked about it since then. Obviously it's been on his mind though, lol.

I found a couple of old Star Wars ships at Goodwill last week. They were cheap so I bought them for Shawn. One of them even came with R2D2 and a Luke Skywalker figure. They make noises too so it was well worth the $6.00 I paid for the pair. Joshua likes them as much as Shawn does. It's killing Shawn not to be able to wear his Halloween costume yet. The other day, he was filling out a Super Me book and the page asked him to draw 3 wishes that he would wish for. His first wish...to be a Real Jedi, lol. Isn't it funny how the same toys that were popular when we were growing up are still popular?

Toxic Bubbles

2008-09-26T08:44:00.003-04:00

Some of you may know that I volunteered to help out with religious ed this year. I'm the kindergarten teacher's helper. Next year, I need to volunteer earlier so I can get the teachers position because I've realized that I have serious control issues, lol. It's very hard for me to keep my mouth shut. It was even harder this past Wednesday when the religious ed subject was water. The teacher brought in a project to make your own bubbles. The recipe called for dish detergent so she brought in automatic dishwasher detergent. Hello, can you say toxic??? Where has she been the last 10 years? Her son is in the class so it's not like she doesn't have kids. How can you be so clueless? I would never want my 5 yr. old to be playing with automatic dishwasher detergent. She didn't even buy the environmentally safe kind either, she bought walmart brand. She still did the project even after I expressed my concerns. I was watching the kids very carefully to make sure no one put the lips too close to try and blow bubbles. Thankfully the project didn't work and she brought out the store bought bubbles for the kids to play with.

What color?

2008-09-23T17:22:00.002-04:00

I really need to pick out a color for the daycare room and get the room painted but I have no idea what color to paint it. Obviously I don't want white but what color? The room will probably have a mix-match of different educational type decorations with primary colors.

I asked a friend, who is an interior decorator, for advice. She said to paint it a pale/light yellow. What do you think? If you have another idea, please let me know.

Getting ready for Halloween

2008-09-14T17:45:00.002-04:00

It almost seems kind of early to worry about Halloween but it really isn't that far away. I saw a super cute costume for Joshua a couple weeks ago in an Oriental Trading catalog but when I decided to go ahead and buy it last night, it was sold out :(

Of course I was able to find it somewhere else and if you want to see the costume, click here.

Shawn keeps flipping back and forth on whether to be a Storm Trooper or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Right now it's Obi-Wan which I'm happy about because he won't have to wear a helmet. I'm just not sure what size to get him. It comes in sizes 4/6, 8/10, 12/14. He wears a size 6 clothes but I wonder if the 4/6 will be too small. I definitely think the 8/10 will be too big. Where is the size 6/8???? LOL! That's the size he needs.

It's a goner!

2008-09-14T07:26:00.003-04:00

Shawn now has a hole where one of his baby teeth used to reside. It fell out yesterday afternoon. Good thing too because he was having a hard time eating and told me it wasn't fun having a loose tooth, lol. I thought it came out pretty quick since we just discovered it yesterday. Anyway, Shawn put his tooth under his pillow and the tooth fairy left him a dollar. He was very excited about it this morning and kept telling me that today was his lucky day. Here's a picture of the missing tooth:

Shawn's exciting news...

2008-09-12T18:30:00.002-04:00

We are very excited in the Taylor household because Shawn finally has his first loose tooth!!! We discovered it today when he was eating an apple after school. There was a little blood around the tooth and I thought Shawn was going to freak out about it but I made a big deal about him having his first loose tooth. He was more excited then anything and didn't even mention the blood when he looked at it in the mirror. Apples...they do the trick everytime!

Always Remember...

2008-09-11T07:19:00.003-04:00

Where were you when you heard/saw the news about the World Trade Center? I'll never forget.

I was pregnant with Shawn and had some horrible morning sickness. That day, I called in sick from work. I had been napping on the couch while the t.v. was still on. When I woke up, they were showing the crash of the first tower. I thought it was a movie at first until the second airplane crashed into the second tower. I was stunned! I was glued to the t.v. When they reported about another airplane hitting the pentagon, I was really scared. See I was living in MD and the pentagon really isn't too far away. I didn't know how many more airplanes were out there and I was worried about Don. He used to travel near D.C. for work so I immediately called him to make sure he was ok and then told him what happened. He came home soon after that and we just watched the t.v. all night.

How did the events impact us? Well, I wondered what kind of world we were going to be raising our kids in. It also led me to be a stay at home mom. I was working at Martin State Airport and we were in the no fly zone. Well, if no airplanes are flying, then they aren't breaking. If they aren't breaking, then we weren't fixing them. My company started letting people go. Ironically, they offered me a promotion or a lay off. If I took the promotion, I would have to go back to the avionics shop and take the place of one of the new guys that they would ultimately lay off. I couldn't afford to quit but a lay off sounded pretty good to me, lol. I didn't really want to go back to the avionics shop. I just had a new baby and I couldn't imagine coming home from work each night tired, grimy, and sore so I took the lay off and we've been poor ever since, lol. No, we are not poor but we've definitely had to change our style of living and we've had to do without for a very long time. It will be nice when we can stop worrying so much about money.

I will never forget that day. I'm proud to be an American. I support our troops. I can't wait until election day!

My potty training dilemma...

2008-09-02T09:52:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure if Joshua is actually ready for potty training but he loves to sit on the potty and will usually pee when he sits on it. He hasn't pooped on it yet though. He doesn't tell me when he has to pee but if I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty, he always gets excited and answers yes. He can squeeze out a few drops even if he doesn't really have to pee. Here's my dilemma...he's too darn skinny for pull ups or training pants!!!

With Shawn we used pull ups. I know not everyone agrees with using them but we just had to with Shawn. I tried the training pants with Shawn but the plastic cover was too big and would leak the pee so I was having to clean up the floor after he peed and I didn't feel comfortable letting him play on the carpet. I tried letting him go naked but that ended up in frustration after watching him pee on the floor right in front of me even after asking him constantly if he had to pee. So we went with pull ups and he eventually got it. He was 3 yrs old before we even tried to potty train.

I think Joshua would do good if we had pull ups or training pants but the smallest pull up will slide down his little butt. Most of the training pants I found online goes by weight and Joshua doesn't fall into the smallest weight size so I'm scared to spend the money on them to find out that they are too big. What to do? What to do? Oh, and I don't want to let him go naked because I have witness him get out of the bathtub, run into the hallway (which is carpeted) and start peeing. I'm not the kind of person who has the patience to clean up pee all day, lol.

Yeah, we have bus transportation!

2008-08-26T21:45:00.002-04:00

Shawn is finally riding the bus! Last Thursday, I decided to just go ahead and register him for the regular bus online. It told me that I needed a e-mail confirmation before he could ride the bus. Well, I never got one so yesterday I stopped by the office after dropping Shawn off and explained my situation to the secretary. She had me fill out a form and told me that as long as they provided the bus driver with that form, she couldn't refuse him. So she gave me a pink armband to attach to his backpack (the buses are color coded) and asked if I wanted him to ride the bus home that day. At first I was getting ready to say yes but decided to wait until today. I didn't want Shawn freaking out since he didn't know he would be riding the bus. Plus, this is the "real" bus and he wouldn't have any idea where to get off at. This morning when I took Shawn to school, I showed him where the bus stop was and told him that's where he needs to get off of the bus and that I would be waiting for him there. I just crossed my fingers this afternoon that he was on that bus, lol. I took my cell phone to the bus stop just in case. Everything was ok; Shawn was on the bus. The bus driver even stopped him before he got off the bus and asked him where his mom was so I felt good about that. So no more car lines for me!!!

Bob the Builder Vs. Handy Manny

2008-08-26T07:09:00.002-04:00

Who would win?

Shawn LOVED Bob the Builder when he was 2 and 3. He couldn't get enough of Bob. I saved all the Bob the Builder toys (not like we had a lot of them) for Joshua but every time Joshua plays with Bob, he calls him Handy Manny, lol. Joshua doesn't really care too much to watch Handy Manny right now or Bob the Builder for that matter, but he does watch Handy Manny enough to know who he is. Let's compare:

They are both builders/repair guys. They both have helpers - Manny has the tools and Bob has his crew. They both have girls in their lives that help them out - Manny has Kelly and Bob has Wendy. They're both bachelors. Personally, I like the old Bob the Builder cartoons with the old Spud (I don't like the new Spud's voice). Who do you vote for?

More bus drama...

2008-08-22T09:31:00.001-04:00

Well, Shawn is still a car rider :-(

I've decided to just try to get him switched to the regular bus so I don't have to waste any more gas. I registered online yesterday but it said that I need an e-mail confirmation before he can ride the bus and I haven't gotten it yet.

Update #2

2008-08-18T16:18:00.002-04:00

Well, I ended up picking up Shawn anyway. Around 3pm, Mrs. Barber (the EELP teacher) called me to ask me if I was wondering where Shawn was. Then she told me he was in the office because the bus driver has a different list then the school has and since he wasn't on her list, she wasn't taking him. He wasn't the only one who didn't make it on that bus. She also said that they were trying to get him removed from the ESE bus and put on the regular ed bus. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that doesn't happen. It's so convenient to walk out in front of the house to get him from the bus. I don't even have to wake up Joshua if he's still sleeping. So for now I guess Shawn is going to be a car rider until further notice. Should I charge the transportation department my gas money?

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

2008-08-18T13:05:00.005-04:00

If we had a bus that is. We never got a call this weekend from the ESE bus driver so I took Shawn into school this morning. Can you say mass confusion!!! It took me an hour to get Shawn to school. Class is supposed to start at 8am or 8:05 I can't remember. Anyway, we got to class at about 8:30am.

I stopped by the office to pick up a car rider sign since it looks like I'll be driving Shawn to school for a while until I can get this straightened out. The secretary asked me if I registered Shawn for bus transportation. What??? That's the first I heard of that. After a small discussion, it comes down to whether or not Shawn is supposed to be on the ESE bus or not. If he isn't then I can register him online for the regular bus. That's the stupidest thing I've heard. I don't ever remember having to do that as a kid. I think if you are registered for school and you are eligible for bus transportation then you should have it but here you have to register for it. This is Shawn's 4th year at this school and we've never had a problem with bus transportation.

I'm not looking forward to pick up time. If this morning was a mess, I can't imagine what this afternoon is going to look like! I keep going back and forth on what time I should leave. Should I leave early to get in the front of the line but have to wait 30 minutes before they dismiss school or should I leave later and get in the back of the line that will take forever to get to the front? Either way sucks IMO.

Update: the ESE specialist at Shawn's school just called. She said that Shawn is on her ESE transportation list but they only had him listed for the afternoons. I still should have gotten a call from the bus driver though to let me know what time they were going to drop him off at the house. She told me that she would let Shawn's teacher know what's going on so he can ride the bus home today. Yippee!!!!!!!! I don't have to wait in the pick up line!!!

I knew I was forgetting something...

2008-08-15T20:12:00.002-04:00

Today was the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary which means we have to go to church. Our church had mass times at 8am; 5:30pm; and 7pm. I was planning on going to the 8am mass because I felt it would work out best for the kids. Anyway, I totally forgot this morning! We ended up going to the 5:30pm mass which meant an early dinner. We barely made it to church on time. I kept telling God to help us get there on time since we left the house later than we should have and waited about 10 minutes at the intersection of Lithia Pinecrest and Lumsden. When we pulled up to the church there was a fire engine out front. Someone got hurt coming into the church and the paramedics were working on her inside. So mass didn't actually start until 5:40pm. The kids were horrible. Shawn could not sit still for the life of him and Joshua kept humming and I couldn't get him to stop. The more I tried to hush Joshua the louder he started humming. I could only take comfort in knowing the Blessed Mother knew what I was going through, lol.

Before going to church this evening, I spent all afternoon trying to get a hold of bus transportation. They obviously screwed up this year because several parents were concerned that they haven't gotten anything in the mail from them. The school office just received the list yesterday so there were a lot of parents checking the list to make sure their kid had bus transportation. Of course Shawn's name wasn't on the list. I'm thinking he'll be riding the ESE bus again but they didn't have that list. So, I tried and tried to get a hold of bus transportation all afternoon. I would either get a busy signal, a sound that I never heard before (kind of a cross between a ring and a busy signal), a disconnect sound (like someone picked up and then hung up), or a message from the operator telling me "I'm sorry but your call did not go through. Please try again". I guess everyone in the county was trying to call them today. We'll be waiting for a call this weekend from his bus driver telling us when they are going to pick Shawn up on Monday morning and if we don't hear anything, we'll just drive him to school and try to figure it out on Monday.

1st grade here we come

2008-08-14T21:37:00.002-04:00

So tonight was orientation at Shawn's school. We already knew that he had the same teacher. When we pulled into the parking lot, we ended up parking next to Sophia, someone in Shawn's class from last year. I asked who her teacher was this year and her mom said Mrs. Errity. Great, Shawn already knew someone in his class. Then we walked up to the classroom and the door was closed. She had all the students first names on her door and everyone was in his class last year. He has the exact same class, teacher and all (well except for a different classroom). He's so excited. I thought maybe all the kindergarten classes stayed together but I ran into Nolan (who was in EELP with Shawn) and his mom said that he doesn't have anyone that he knows in his new class. I'm not sure how we got to be so lucky but I'm not complaining. Shawn can't wait to start school on Monday...music to a mothers ears, lol.

Good ole back yard fun

2008-08-13T08:50:00.003-04:00

Don set up the slip n slide in the back yard for the kids to play with. Don even joined in on the fun.

This and That...

2008-08-10T21:30:00.003-04:00

I got my car washed today. I think it was the first time in like 2 yrs., lol! All Joshua wanted to do was squirt the hose.

I have mixed feelings about school starting. On one hand, I'll be glad when Shawn goes back to school because it is good for him and he'll be busy all day. On the other hand, it's so much more work for me trying to pack his lunch (because of the fact that most of what we eat is not finger food and it's warm). I have to call or drop by the school to see if I can make an appointment with the school nurse. Shawn is going to have to take a digestive enzyme with his lunch and I know I can't just pack it in his lunch box. Plus, I need to have it documented somewhere that he's allergic to peanuts and he can't eat any food unless it's from home.

I've been preparing Shawn all summer about starting first grade. I've been telling him when he goes back to school, he'll have a different teacher. I wanted it to sink in because he had Mrs. Barber for 2 years and I wanted to make sure he knew that Mrs. Errity wasn't going to be his teacher this year. We got the packet from the school on Friday and guess who his teacher is? That's right...Mrs. Errity! She's now a first grade teacher. Shawn is super excited! In a way, I'm a little disappointed but at least I know he has a good teacher. She's easy to get along with and she already knows Shawn. This will be the third year he's been in her class. Shawn used to go to her class for 2 hrs. twice a week during his last year in EELP to help transition him into kindergarten. We are already for school. No new clothes since they all fit from last year. I may have to buy him some jeans when it starts to get cold and I'll probably have to buy him shoes before the end of the school year but for now he's all set.

I made some roasted kale this afternoon. Check out my other blog to read about it.

The unveiling...

2008-08-09T22:33:00.003-04:00

Ok, so here I am with my new "lighter" hair. I really like it. The cut isn't really anything new; it's very similar to what it was before I let it grow out. Can you imagine that there was an extra 6" added to the length before the cut?

Out with the old and in with the new

2008-08-09T14:27:00.002-04:00

I could not take it anymore; my long hair that is. It was just too long to do anything with, it was heavy, it took too long to clean, etc. I was going to try and wait until I had 10" to donate to Locks of Love but I just couldn't stand it anymore. We had an appointment on Tuesday to get our portraits done for our church directory. So when I came home from church on Sunday I made an appointment for that day to get my haircut. I feel so free!!! My head is much lighter now. She took off 6". I'm glad I didn't wait now. I'm not sure if I would have wanted to get a shorter cut but even if I did, I would have had to wait a few more months to have 10".

I found a picture of the haircut I wanted and the girl in the picture had her hair highlighted. When I showed Don the cut I was going to get, I mentioned that I would like to get my hair highlighted like that some day. He said I should do it now. I told him that the reason I've never highlighted my hair before is because it's so expensive and you have to keep doing it. Then he told me that some times a woman needs to pamper herself and that I should just have it done. That was the sweetest thing. I always do without because of our finances. It's the main reason I was letting my hair grow out; to save money. So when I took the boys to get their haircuts on Tuesday, I made an appointment for me to get my hair highlighted today. You'll have to wait for a picture though. As soon as I got home, Don rushed off to work at Lowe's so I'll have him take a picture tonight when he comes home.

Ugh, tired!!!

2008-08-01T19:43:00.002-04:00

I'm so tired. I didn't get much sleep last night because for some reason, Shawn woke up at 2 am. He tried not waking Joshua by whispering into the monitor but it didn't work; Joshua woke up too. Oh, and let me tell you...when you whisper right into the monitor, it's very loud and scary sounding, lol. Don got up with them (the first time). Shawn went right back to sleep but not Joshua. I decided I was going to lay down in his bed with him for a little while to see if I could get him to relax and fall back to sleep. It wasn't happening so I left and came back to bed. A few minutes later he starts calling my name and telling me he pooped. I knew he didn't poop but I decided to go ahead and change his diaper thinking maybe he would fall back to sleep. So when I go in there, he's soaking wet! His diaper leaked in the 5 minutes I left him. So then I had to change his diaper and his pjs and his sheets. The whole time Shawn is sleeping like a baby. Part of me wanted to go over and wake him up since he started the whole thing.

So then today I was thinking there was a good chance I could catch a nap since Joshua didn't get much sleep last night and we spent the morning at the pool. He slept 1 hour!!! Of course, I didn't hop into bed as soon as he took his nap so he woke up about 10 minutes after I got into bed. He's in bed right now and Shawn will be following soon. I'm not staying up late tonight! I need some sleep!!!

A trip down memory lane...

2008-07-28T22:45:00.005-04:00

Since I was digging through my old pictures to find a picture to show off my tan, I decided to scan a few others and share.

Here I am with my aunt Mary Beth sitting on the back porch of my grandparents house. I think I was probably 2 or 3 yrs old since I still had long hair.

Here I am with my aunt Julie inside my grandparents house.

I had to ask my mom what I was doing in this picture. She said that I used to make up stories all the time and my aunt Fran (who is actually a cousin but I always called her aunt) was egging me on. I guess my aunt Chris thought it was hilarious.

Here I am with straight hair after my mom finally had my hair cut. She always regretted it because she loved my curls. I hated them though because back then, there wasn't any kind of detangler. I think I was 4 in this picture or maybe 5.

Got to love the 70's

And finally, my 10th grade school picture.

Now that's tan!

2008-07-28T22:30:00.003-04:00

A few posts back, Melodie asked me where Shawn gets his tan from. Believe it or not, he gets it from my side of the family. I was always really tan in the summer. To prove it, here is a picture of me when I was about 6.

Click to Give

2008-07-27T23:07:00.002-04:00

Some of you may already know about this site but I felt like it was important to share with anyone unfamiliar with The Hunger Site. Please visit The Hunger Site daily and click (it's free). Every click helps feed the hungry!

New tooth?

2008-07-25T20:02:00.003-04:00

Joshua is now 27 months and he still doesn't have all his baby teeth yet. I'm not even talking about his 2 yr old molars (he doesn't have those yet either). I'm talking about his cuspids. Today I finally think I saw what looks like a cuspid tooth on the bottom left side trying to push through so hopefully within the next few days we may have a new tooth!

I love free things!

2008-07-24T16:54:00.004-04:00

I love getting things for free! Today, I responded to a freeshare ad for girls legos. As far as I'm concerned, legos are legos and I didn't think Shawn would care less about them being in a pink box so, we went to go pick them up in the Bloomingdale area. Since they were free, I don't feel like I have the right to complain but...I was a little disappointed in the amount of legos in the box. Here's what we received.

The legos barely covered the bottom of the container, lol. I could fit them in a sandwich sized Ziplock and still have room to spare. I am grateful for free legos. However, I think I paid for them in gas!

I'm feeling a little out numbered today

2008-07-19T15:56:00.002-04:00

Oh, the joy of being a mother to two boys! Today, we ran a few errands and I stopped at Walmart to buy some tapes for the camcorder. While we were there, we bought some school supplies that were on sale. Next thing I know, Joshua has white stuff in his hair. He had gotten a hold of the Elmer's glue and opened it and got it in his hair, on his shirt, and all over his hands. Thankfully, he didn't get it on any of the other school supplies.

As we were leaving Walmart, Joshua points to my boob and says belly. I told him that wasn't mommy's belly. Of course he asked "why"? I told him that was mommy's booby but we don't say booby to people because it's not nice. Then Shawn piped in and said "but if I say that I like your booby, that's nice. Right mommy?" Umm, no. We don't say that. Then Shawn says "I said LIKE your bobby". "I know what you said and like is a good word but you don't say I like your booby to women" Ugh, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in a couple of years when we have to explain sex, lol.

Feeling Green

2008-07-16T15:16:00.004-04:00

I'm feeling kind of green today. Not green with envy but in the recycling mood kind of green. I was browsing a few green websites today and found these cool recycling ideas:

The first one is a site that recycles your old toothbrushes. Who would have thought? Actually, they have to be their brand of toothbrushes but now it makes me want to buy their brand. They have a subscription of 4 toothbrushes for $11.00. I don't think that's a bad price considering the toothbrush handles are made out of recycled plastic and you can send in your old toothbrushes to be recycled for free. They have other products too and their website says they are now available at Target.

Here's a cool book: Hungry Planet:What the World Eats. I'm excited to check this book out at the library. If you want to know what it's about, click on the link and read the Amazon.com review.

I'm not sure if I would ever want to buy one of these, but it is a pretty neat idea.

I dream of someday having a green house. If I won the lottery, I would buy a large piece of land and have a house built the way I want using recycled materials and energy efficient materials. I would have enough room in my yard to plant a veggie/herb garden and even have some fruit trees/bushes. Some of the products first on my list since the chances of winning the lottery are slim, are sippy cups and other plastic cups that are BPA free, safe plastic food containers, reusable towels for the kitchen (giving up paper towels is going to be a huge challenge for me), and safe lunch totes (I didn't even realize there was a concern with them until searching around today).

I saw a neat composting idea that I'm going to try out since I missed the free compost class put on by the Hillsborough County Extension Services. I was only going for the free composter but I watched this video today that showed a women saving her kitchen scraps in one of these and then once a week, they would dig a hole in the garden, dump the kitchen scraps in, and then cover it back up. I have no use for compost right now since I have no decent landscaping and my front garden is full of weeds but it would be awesome to recycle my kitchen scraps. I want a simple composter like the Earth Machine. I had one in Maryland but it didn't make the move. I got it free through the county I lived in.

There's lots more I can do around here to become a greener house. We've already done the basics of changing all the light bulbs, and we do recycle (although I hate Hillsborough County's recycling program) but I want to do more. If you know some easy and affordable ways to help save the environment, send them my way.

Family Day at the Beach

2008-07-14T08:05:00.005-04:00

Don didn't have to work at Lowe's yesterday so we decided earlier in the week to go to the beach. My parents asked us on Wednesday if we wanted to go to the beach with them on Sunday. Coincidence?

We decided to go to Clearwater beach since my Dad said there was a storm brewing in the Gulf but it was supposed to stay south of us. I was a little worried driving to the beach because there were dark clouds everywhere. However, we didn't see one drop of rain on the way there, the whole time we were at the beach, or on the way home. It was overcast most of the time we were there but we all had a great time. I love the beach; I just wish it wasn't so much work! Here's some pictures of our day:

Don setting up the tent. See the dark clouds looming behind?

My Mom

My Dad

Making some changes around here...

2008-07-10T14:16:00.002-04:00

I'm getting a little anxious to get my daycare set up. Now that all my classes are done, I have to concentrate on the house. There are things I need money for before I can do some things but I took it upon myself yesterday to start rearranging things. Originally, I was planning on buying another set of drawers for under Joshua's bed. However, the store we originally bought the bed from is no longer open plus we really can't afford to buy it anyway so I started brainstorming and came up with an idea. Shawn's closet is full of shelves to store toys and he had a bar at the bottom for his clothes and they were reachable for him at age 3. I decided to take out the bottom two shelves in his closet and move Joshua's dresser into the closet. Joshua would get the top two drawers and Shawn would get the bottom drawer. Now I have all of Joshua's clothes in the bedroom. Plus, I went through all of Shawn's and Joshua's clothes and pulled out all the clothes that no longer fit. Their bedroom is still a mess though but I'm hoping that once I start organizing the daycare room, I can finish organizing their room also. Taking away two shelves is a problem for storage in their room, lol. The daycare room is also mess right now. Filled with toys with no home. I need some organization!!!

Make some wishes come true...

2008-07-08T10:19:00.002-04:00

Have you ever wanted to pay it forward? Here's an easy way to do it...I found this website through the FrogPond. It's called Wish Upon a Hero. Check it out!

You can grant a wish or request a wish. You can even request a wish for someone else. The wishes range from prayers and cards to money to pay for bills/repairs/clothes/food, etc.

I've already granted one wish. It was easy! I have offered to grant 3 others and I'll be looking at others to grant when I have time.

I've also requested a wish. Check it out here. Even if you can't help grant my wish (or want to, LOL) please at least view it. The more views I get the higher it will show. Thanks everyone!

Parade Booty

2008-07-06T19:42:00.002-04:00

We got a ton of stuff from the parade but when I saw Karlise's post, I thought to myself "there is no way I'm counting all those beads", lol. However, today I was bored so I did count them. Here's what we got:

98 bead necklaces
4 mini Frisbees
1 spider ring
1 Navy pencil
2 Navy can koozie's
2 packages of flower seeds
2 mini maracas
1 mini beach ball
1 foam light bulb that Joshua bit the end off of
1 foam progressive insurance car
2 bracelets
2 Chick-fil-A coupons for a free kids size icedream
2 American flags
2 Dixie flags
6 bottles of water (thank you God since I forgot our cooler!)
1 ton of candy (even though we were constantly telling them we didn't want it)
1 newspaper
1 ton of advertisements
1 comic book (Don said it wasn't really an appropriate comic book for kids)

I think that's it. I'm pretty sure we still have stuff in the basket of our double camping chair but I think its mostly the advertisements.

Fireworks!

2008-07-05T10:07:00.003-04:00

This was the first year we went to see the fireworks at the mall. My aunt went last year so she was kind of in charge of picking the spot to see them. She also got there earlier than us and saved us parking spots. However, as we were driving in, I saw where they were going to set them off. It was in the woods across from Macy's. I told the rest of the people and I decided I would drive in that area to see if I could find parking spots. I found a ton of parking spots together near the Cheesecake Factory and thought it would be a perfect spot to see the fireworks since there weren't any trees in the way. My Aunt and everyone else didn't want to move though so we ended up in the Toys r Us parking lot. Of course when the fireworks started, there were trees in the way, lol. It wasn't the best spot to see them but we could see most of them fine. I didn't say a thing but you can bet in my mind I was screaming "I told you so!". I thought getting out of there was going to be horrible and it probably would have been if we took the main road around the mall but Don is a pretty smart guy. We crossed over from TRU to the mall side and drive along the road hugging the mall. There was no traffic and we drove all the way over to Sears with absolutely no problems.

Happy B-day U.S.A.!!!

2008-07-04T15:01:00.005-04:00

We are making the 4th of July parade a tradition. The kids were excited to go but Shawn acted bored the whole time. He did say he had a good time after we left though.

We were rushing around this morning and ended up leaving later than we wanted. I packed us a cooler with drinks and snacks and left it on the kitchen counter. Even worse than that, we weren't thinking (because we were in a hurry) and went down Lumsden instead of Rt. 60. Of course the road was closed off at Parsons so we ended up parking at Westminster and walking. That's both kids, a canopy tent, a double seated camping chair, 2 single camping chairs, and the diaper bag. We made it all the way up to All Persons Specialty Care and found us a spot. We noticed as we were walking up Parsons that there were cars driving on the opposite side of the street and we could have kicked ourselves. Oh well, lesson learned for next year, lol.

We did have one minor incident before the parade started...Joshua got attacked by some fire ants :( Luckily, it happened right before the parade started so the parade took his mind off the ant bites. Here are a few pictures of the parade:

What else you ask?

2008-07-03T19:10:00.003-04:00

Since Andrea asked...We have to repair our fence (there are a few boards that need to be replaced and make sure there are no nails or staples sticking out), child proof the kitchen (right now we have it gated off but I'll be using the eat in kitchen part for meals), replace the kitchen gate (one of my kids broke it), I need to get a fire inspection done, and then a final house inspection.

The biggest part for me now is actually setting up the daycare room. It’s the biggest challenge because I need to buy some things for storage and we don’t really have the money right now. I’m hoping that I can stretch the $1,000 grant I’ll be getting from the YMCA to cover everything I want to get. Luckily, there isn’t too much in the toy area that I’ll need right away but I’ll need some cots, a child sized table and chairs, some small bookcases similar to these to store the toys, a bookcase or book rack to store the books, something like this to store diaper bags/diapers/wipes, a rug for the living room because that’s where they are going to be napping. I'll want to paint it of course.

I have to figure out how to get some shade in the back yard. We can always use the tent we use for the craft fairs but Don won’t want to keep it up overnight so I’m looking for something more permanent. Shade is required to get licensed. I may need to get a few more outdoor toys. I have to have 12 outside activities. So far I have 2 slides, a sandbox (that isn’t set up yet but at least I have one), a playhouse (that should count for at least 2 activities), a wagon, a ride on toy, and some balls. I'd like to get an easel for painting and I like this one but don't want to spend that much on it, lol. I have to call the woman in charge of the grant to let her know I'm done with my 30 hr. child care class and passed all the exams so we can move forward on the whole grant thing. Once I get the grant money spent, I'll be hitting the yard sales!

I passed!

2008-07-02T20:09:00.002-04:00

So glad that's over with! The last test I took (Monday night) was tough. It was on rules & regulations but it had questions on first aid kits and other stuff. I guess that's covered in the rules and regs but not in our study guide, lol. I was sweating that one out for sure. Next up...5 hr. Early Literacy Training.

It's hard to believe that it's July already. Where did the time go? I don't really remember too much of June, lol. We are going to the 4th of July parade on Friday. The kids are excited about it. I'll have to do some pre-planning so we can have snacks to bring with us. My parents are supposed to come over our house late afternoon and then we'll head over to the pool for a little while (that's if it's not raining). Plans are to cook out on the grill for dinner then head up to the mall later for some fireworks. Shawn is really excited about that. Not sure how Joshua will do but I'm sure he won't be sleeping if we didn't go. There are plenty of people in our neighborhood that set fireworks off so whether or not we go to the mall, Joshua is sure to be awake.

If I only knew this before...

2008-07-01T14:01:00.002-04:00

we saw Speed Racer. I found a cool new website through the Frog Pond. It's called Kids-in-Mind. It rates the different movies that are out by sexual content, violence, and profanity. There will be no more surprise middle fingers in the movies we see, lol. They will go into detail for each movie so you can see if it's something you would want your kid to see. I've already bookmarked this site. Enjoy.

My Blog is worth...

2008-07-01T13:05:00.000-04:00

My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?

Last day of VBS...WooHoo!!!

2008-06-27T19:51:00.002-04:00

Now don't get me wrong; I love VBS. I know Shawn had a blast this week and I think Joshua enjoyed the change. However, I'm so thankful that it is done. My house looks like a tornado touched down. After I got Joshua down for a nap today, I spent some time cleaning up the kitchen (still not done but so much better). I went through all the junk mail that's been piling up on my dining room table. I attempted to vacuum the great room but when I pulled out my beloved Electrolux Pronto, it wasn't working. The light wasn't even coming on when it was placed in the charger. I didn't have time to fool with it so I brought out the broom. Ugh, I hate to sweep. I hate it so much that after I was done sweeping, I pulled the charger apart to see if I could find something wrong with it. Everything looked good; all solder joints intact, no fuses, nothing out of the ordinary. I put everything back together and plugged it in one more time and this time the light came on. I have no idea what I did but I'm so happy it's working again.

Tomorrow is my last class for my 30 hr. child care class and I have my final exam on Monday night. I didn't think the results would be posted for the last three that I took on Wednesday but when I checked my transcript this afternoon, I found out that I passed all three!

Stressed!!!

2008-06-25T22:54:00.002-04:00

Today was just a little stressful. Besides spending the day at VBS, I had to stop at the store on the way home to pick up a few ingredients for dinner. That wasn't really the stressful part. The stressful part was that I took 3 exams tonight and I still needed to study for 2 of them. I also volunteered to contribute to the VBS evening dinner tonight. My MOMS ministry was providing the dinner tonight. Plus, I had a sink full of dishes. I definitely needed to prioritize and studying won out. So I studied as best as I could for 1 1/2 hrs while Joshua took his nap. Then I woke him up at 3:30pm so I could drop off my food at the school. Thankfully, Don got home at 4:30pm today so as soon as we got home, I started studying again. I didn't get to study the material for the 3rd test but since we just went over it on Saturday, I was kind of hoping it was still fresh in my memory.

Don did a lot for me tonight so I have to give him props. He finished dinner, did a load of dishes (yes, I had so many dirty dishes it required 2 loads), fed the kids, put the kids to bed (well kind of, they were still awake when I got home and I had to go into their room and set them straight), and made some almond flour pancakes for breakfast the next couple of days.

I have no idea how I did on my exams. The first and last seemed pretty easy but only time will tell. The second one was hard. I knew it was going to be hard and I spent the most time studying for that one. I'm hoping that it payed off but I truly have no idea how I did on that one.

Once I got home and ate my dinner, I had to prepare for tomorrow's lesson for VBS. I had prepared for the first 3 days and thought that by today, I would have an idea how I was going to spend my 30 minute lesson. Of course I'm not prepared so I had to read over the material and figure out what I was going to say and what activities we would do. I had to write out the Bible Verse of the day on poster board, get all the tree top critters of the day out of their bags and put them in my bag for tomorrow so I wouldn't forget them, and put 2 bottles of water in the fridge for tomorrow. I'll just be glad when I wake up tomorrow and the stress will be behind me. Of course then I have to prepare for Friday's lesson, lol.

One down, four more to go...

2008-06-24T14:27:00.003-04:00

I took my first exam (Health and Nutrition) for the 30 hr. child care class I'm required to take to get licensed last Tuesday. They don't tell you if you pass or fail; you have to keep checking online to see if you passed. I've been checking since Friday and it was finally on my transcript today that I passed, yay! So now I have 4 more exams to take. I take 3 tomorrow night and my last one next Monday.

VBS went much smoother today except I have 3 boys that are trouble makers. All the kids in the other 3rd grade class are calm and quite. Why do I always get the loud and active ones??? Do they think I have more experience with that? LOL

Here are a few pics I took of my room. They didn't turn out that great but you get the idea.

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-06-23T14:44:00.002-04:00

Thank you everyone for the happy birthday wishes! Although it wasn't an ideal birthday (Don had to work), I still had a very nice day. It started with church. The kids didn't get to bed until after 9pm on Saturday because we were at my parent's house visiting with my cousin who is down here on vacation. I didn't want to take cranky kids with me to the 8am mass so I left the kids home with Don. I feel guilty for even saying this BUT....it was absolutely wonderful to be able to actually pay attention in church for a change. I finally felt like I was there in body, mind, and spirit. I had to stop at the store on the way home from church to get a few things. Once I came home, Don and the kids gave me their cards and lots of hugs and kisses. I had to do a little bit of research on the internet and then it was time to feed the kids lunch and get Joshua down for a nap.

Don had to go into Lowe's at 2pm. My parents were coming over to watch Joshua so Shawn and I could decorate my room for VBS (we were doing a rainforest theme). There was supposed to be 3 group leaders decorating our room but only one other girl showed up. We had no idea how we were going to decorate the room. I brought a bunch of brown paper bags (the kind you get from the grocery store) and that was it. Trista brought a bag full of stuffed animals. We were able to acquire some construction paper and we used it to cut out a bunch of leaves. I cut the bags open and rolled them up and twisted them to look like vines and then we stapled the leaves to the vines. When we first got there I felt a little overwhelmed because I saw all these other people bringing in lots of plants and greenery and other things to decorate their rooms with and all we had was some brown paper bags, lol. I just didn't have the money to go out and by my own decorations for VBS so we did the best we could. We were only supposed to decorate a small area and I have to say that by the time we finished, it didn't look half bad. I forgot to take my camera yesterday to take pictures. I took it today but there was mass confusion and I didn't have an opportunity to take a picture. I'm going to try and get there extra early tomorrow so hopefully I can post pictures tomorrow. I found some rainforest sounds and copied them to a CD to play in the room while we were doing our small group time.

While we were at the school decorating, I started walking around the other rooms to get ideas. I found the 1st grade class (my aunt is teaching 1st grade) so I stopped in and saw my friends Heather and Meredith. Heather knew it was my birthday so she yelled to everyone (they had a lot of youth helpers) to sing happy birthday to me, lol. Then when Trista was leaving (she is the evening 3rd grade teacher) she gave me a small gift. I thought that was very thoughtful of her since we only met about 2 months ago.

So after leaving the school, Shawn and I made a quick stop at Publix to pick up a rotisserie chicken for my parents and then came home. I found out that Joshua didn't take a nap. Holy cow, he didn't fall asleep on Saturday night until 10pm and still woke up at 6:30am and he didn't take a nap??? As soon I got in the door, I immediately got Joshua's dinner together and fed him, changed him, and put him to bed. He fell asleep in about 2 minutes, lol. That was at 5:30pm. Then the rest of us ate dinner. My mom made us an SCD legal spice cake with legal frosting and it was soooo good. The kids loved it! I didn't get my present from my parents because my mom ordered it online but she did have it shipped to me. She sent me the tracking number and it's supposed to arrive on Wednesday so I will have to let you know what I got and how much I love it (at least I hope I'm going to love it). My parents left a little before 7pm because I wanted to get Shawn to bed early to make up for the lack of sleep. Joshua woke up about 8:45pm (I guess he thought he was taking a nap, lol). It took me about an hour but I finally got him back to sleep.

So that was how I spent my birthday. Of course after the kids went to bed, I had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for VBS. I didn't get to bed until about 1am. I hope to make it to bed earlier tonight.

Where did he go?

2008-06-20T23:56:00.002-04:00

My little boy is not a little boy anymore. Shawn has always been into cartoons and still is. He's never been into the tween shows but this past week, he's wanted to watch iCarly, Hannah Montana, and the suite life of Zach and Cody. He saw that Camp Rock was coming on tonight and asked to watch it because the Jonas Brothers were in it. Umm, who is this kid and where did Shawn go? I didn't even know he knew who the Jonas Brothers were, lol.

Stupid Thunder!!!

2008-06-19T08:44:00.002-04:00

Stupid thunder woke me up this morning. I hate being woke up before I need to. I need all the sleep I can get, lol. In all fairness I should have went to bed earlier. Thankfully, it didn't wake the kids. I'm not sure how though because it shook the whole house! I'm a pretty heavy sleeper too.

I told Shawn he was taking a nap today. He swam a lot in the pool yesterday but didn't get to sleep until after 9pm. He normally goes to bed at 8pm. He probably would have slept in this morning but I had to wake him up at 6:30am. I know he's going to be up late again tonight so I told him he needed to take a nap today so he can catch up on some sleep. Surprisingly he didn't even complain.

Summer Time...

2008-06-18T14:49:00.004-04:00

Well, it's definitely summer time here in the Taylor household. We have been to the pool 4 times in the past week. That's a lot for us since we don't have a pool in our backyard. Today we met with one of our friends in our neighborhood and Shawn finally got to play with a boy. It was really good for him too because Zachary is a really good swimmer so it challenged him. The first time Holly brought her girls to swim with us, Shawn pretty much stayed by the steps. The second time Holly met us at the pool, Shawn was jumping in the deep end with Erin and Maggie. Today, Shawn was all over the place. I think it's really good practice for him so now I'm thinking it's a good idea to keep going as much as possible so he can get lots of practice. It's good exercise and it's cheap too. Joshua is also starting to relax a little in the water. I can't afford to pay for swim lessons right now so I'm just going to try and work with him myself this summer and see how it goes. Hopefully by next year, we can get him swim lessons.

Shawn stayed with my parents this past weekend and my dad took him fishing for the first time. They didn't catch anything though. Here's some pictures my dad took:

Election Time

2008-06-10T08:50:00.003-04:00

Now that the primary's are over, it's time to start thinking about the next president. If you are unsure of where your candidate stands, check out this site. FactCheck.org is cool because it will tell you if a candidate has lied or stretched the truth on certain topics and then post the facts.

BzzAgent

2008-06-09T11:06:00.002-04:00

I went to my BzzAgent home page and was surprised to see that I'm now at a level 3! I'm so excited because now I qualify for early invites plus I have a Golden Key. I'm waiting for a really good campaign to use the key though. I'm liking the new reward system. Before it kicked in I was only at a level 1 although I think I was only .5 pts away from level 2.

If you have no idea what a BzzAgent is and want to learn more, just click here.

I don 't want to judge but....

2008-06-09T09:30:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I'm taking this 30 hour child care course that is required for me to get licensed. Most of the girls in my class are around my age (some younger and some older but basically around my age). I can't believe the ignorance when it comes to basic child care. For example: the Back to Sleep campaign has been around at least since Shawn was an infant so it's not new. There was more than one person that asked the instructor if it would be better to put the baby to sleep on their stomach because what if the baby threw up in his sleep. You'll love this one Karlise - when the instructor was going over child safety seats, she said the law was that any child under the age of 6 had to be in a child safety seat/booster. A girl said that when her nephew just turned 4, he weighed too much for the safety seat that she had for him so she called the police to ask them if he still needed to be in the seat and they told her that he was old enough to use the cars seat belts. The thing that really got me was when the instructor was going over child abuse and talking about discipline and what was considered discipline and what was considered child abuse. Most of the women there could not believe that they couldn't spank a child if they were being disciplined. I guess they didn't understand because they grew up getting beat as a child but you would think that if that were the case, they would understand why you wouldn't spank a child. It's kind of scary knowing that these women are going to be caring for children. I guess it's really good that they make this class a requirement, lol.

Last day of School

2008-06-04T20:44:00.004-04:00

Well I for one am glad that school is done. No more rushing around in the morning trying to cook breakfast and make Shawn's lunch before the bus got here. Yesterday, Shawn's class had an end of the year awards ceremony. The kids sang a song for us then their teacher presented the awards. Each student got a special award that was unique to them. I'm very pleased that Shawn didn't end up with the Energizer Bunny award or the Chatterbox award, lol. Last year, Shawn's EELP teacher put him into Mrs. Errity's class to help him integrate into Kindergarten. Shawn had a tough time transitioning and cried every time he had to go to her class in the beginning. I'm not sure why he acted like that. He's not normally like that but for some reason, he did not like to go to her class. So the award that Mrs. Errity presented to Shawn was the Coming Out of His Shell award. Here's a few pictures from the awards ceremony:

Here's a picture of Joshua that I took today. He was being silly. He was turning his head side to side and pretending his pj sleeves were his ears.

Scattergories

2008-06-01T12:04:00.002-04:00

I've been tagged by my friend Karlise.

SCATTERGORIES. . .It's harder than it looks! Copy and paste into a new blog. When you are done, post a comment on my page.
Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following... they have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. -->-->-->
-->-->
-->-->
What is your name? ..........................................Karen
4 Letter Word.....................................................Kill
Vehicle..................................................................Kia...sorry, I couldn't come up with a different one.
City.......................................................................Knoxville
Boy Name............................................................Kevin
Girl Name............................................................Kelly
Alcoholic Drink....................................................Keg of beer
Occupation...........................................................Key Maker
Something you wear...........................................Khakis
Celebrity...............................................................Kelly Clarkson
Food......................................................................Kielbasa
Something found in a bathroom.......................Kleenex
Reason for Being Late........................................Knocked down
Cartoon Character..............................................Krypto the Superdog
Something You Shout........................................Kick-Ass!
Animal.................................................................Kangaroo
Body part............................................................Kidney
Word to describe you........................................Kind hearted

Dr. Appts.

2008-05-30T07:53:00.003-04:00

Shawn and Joshua had their annual check ups yesterday. I had lots to discuss with Dr. Tappan. We talked about Shawn's appointment with the neurologist and Dr. Tappan wants us to see someone else. However, the doctor he recommended is not in our insurance network so I'm going to have to call him and ask if there is someone else he can recommend. We discussed multi vitamins (not all vitamins are SCD legal) and he recommended the vitamins that we already have, yea! I will have to crush them up to give to the kids because they are big horse pills. I'm currently taking 3 a day. Shawn will be taking one a day and Joshua will be taking 1/2 a day.

When I told Dr. Tappan that we started SCD, I was happy to find out that he was familiar with the diet and had no problems with the kids being on it. I can't tell you how much grief I've heard from some of my family members (Don included) about how they don't think the kids are getting all the nutrition they need when they aren't drinking milk or eating bread. So no problems with the diet!

Joshua weighs 23 lbs now and Shawn is 44 lbs. I can't remember their height and I didn't write it down. I was more concerned with their weight.

We checked today to see if the neuro psychologist that Dr. Tappan recommended was in our network and of course she is not. We called her to find out if she accepts United Health Care and she said that she is not in any insurance networks but most of the time the insurance company will reimburse you. So we called our insurance company and after a $300 deductible, they will pay 60%. So needless to say, we are on hold with this for the time being. I called Dr. Tappan this afternoon to see if there was someone else that he could recommend but he already left for the day. I will call on Monday to see what he recommends. Don wants to just pay out of pocket but even though I really would like to get Shawn a proper diagnosis, I'm not willing to pay that much money when we don't have it to spend. I do think it's important to get him diagnosed though especially since Charlie Crist signed a bill that would force insurance companies to cover therapies for children with Autism. Even though it won't go into effect for another 2 years, it would be nice to have the diagnosis for when it does go into effect.

A Day At The Beach

2008-05-24T18:51:00.003-04:00

Yea! Don didn't have to go into work today until 5pm so we seized the opportunity and went to the beach. It was a perfect day and the kids had a blast.

Yes, that is sand on top of Joshua's head. I can not keep that boy from dumping sand/dirt on his head no matter where we are. It was really nice to get out and finally spend some time as a family.

Catching up

2008-05-19T13:06:00.002-04:00

I thought I should post something since it's been awhile, lol. We went to Kandee's uncle's blueberry farm on Saturday and we picked 6lbs and bought two small blueberry plants. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet because we don't really have a place to plant them yet, lol. Hopefully, they won't die before we can plant them. I washed and froze about 3 lbs of the blueberries but I still have to wash the rest. I don't think the blueberries are going to last as long as I would like them to. Joshua was filthy when we left, but Kandee was still gracious enough to let us visit for a while.

Oh, I just remembered something funny. We were at the store the other day picking up a few things. One of the things I had to get was eggs. Shawn saw the brown eggs and he begged me to get the "chocolate eggs", lol. I tried to explain that they weren't chocolate but I don't think he believed me.

I bought a couple of new bathing suits for Shawn today. Can someone please tell me why they don't put real drawstrings in toddler bathing suits??? The bigger sizes have real drawstrings but the toddler ones have fake for show drawstrings. Do they not realize that there are skinny toddlers out here??? I found a bathing suit for Joshua with a real drawstring at the Children's Place a few months ago. I guess I need to go back and see if they still have anymore. Now that it's getting hotter out, I would like to start going to the pool.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2008-05-11T22:09:00.005-04:00

I hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day. Don had to work today but I still had a nice day. Don made breakfast this morning before he went to work and also loaded up the dishwasher. He gave me a nice card this morning that actually had some meaning and not just a funny card. I didn't find out about this until later but Shawn mentioned to Don that he didn't make me a card and Don felt really bad but told Shawn not to worry about it that he'll take care of it when he got home from work.

I took both kids to church this morning (8am mass). It was long because they had 3 baptisms, ugh. The kids did great the first half but I was ready to pull out my hair by the end of mass. After we came home, I gave the kids a snack then we ran over to Publix to pick up a few things. I fixed us lunch and after lunch, I asked Shawn if he wanted any toys out of his room while Joshua takes a nap and he asked for his craft bins. I laid down in Shawn's bed while Joshua was napping and when Joshua woke up, Shawn gave me this lovely card he made:

If you can't tell, that's Sponge Bob and Squidward with what I think are a couple of jelly fish, lol. Not sure what the pom poms and feathers are for.

When Don came home from work, he told me that he needed to borrow Shawn for a couple of minutes. I told him that he made me a card and that's when Don told me Shawn was upset this morning because he didn't have a card for me. Anyway, Don got Shawn and Joshua and they went out to the garage for a few minutes and then came in with these (minus the vase):

So, maybe not a perfect Mother's Day since I still had to take care of the kids and feed them all day but still a nice day.

Go, Speed Racer, Go

2008-05-10T20:09:00.002-04:00

Here he comes
Here comes Speed Racer
He's a demon on wheels
He's a demon and he's going to be chasing after someone
Go, Speed Racer, Go

I took Shawn to see Speed Racer today. It is rated PG but Shawn really wanted to see it and Alvin and the Chipmunks was rated PG so I figured it wasn't going to be too bad. I figured that it got a PG rating because there is a lot of Kung Fu Fighting. What I wasn't expecting was that Sprittle gave the middle finger to someone. Of course that was over Shawn's head and I don't even think he even knew it was supposed to be funny but I don't think we'll be getting this movie on DVD. I definitely don't want him to see that over and over again. It's a shame too because that was the only thing in the movie I really had a problem with. I mean was it really that important to put that in there? Now they lost a DVD sale from it.

A Good Night!

2008-05-04T16:41:00.002-04:00

Joshua only woke up once last night! He started coughing and it sounded like he was gagging on phlegm so I went in to check on him. He was drenched in sweat! I guess Shawn told Joshua to pull the covers up over him. I flipped his pillow over, held him a few minutes and then laid him back down. He slept through the rest of the night and even slept in! He's been waking up around 6am but this morning he woke up at 7:15am. I think he's finally transitioned. Now I have to get Don to take the crib apart and get it out in the garage.

Big boy bed update...

2008-05-03T20:28:00.002-04:00

After Joshua finally fell asleep Thursday night, he woke up about 3 or 4 times during the night but immediately went back to sleep after I went in there and tucked him in. Last night, he seemed to go to sleep easier but it still took a while. So far tonight, I just left the room...I did not stay in there after prayers were said. I heard Shawn talking to Joshua and telling him to lay down and what to do with the covers etc, and so far it's been quiet. We'll see if he's finally getting used to it.

That didn't last very long!

2008-05-01T21:01:00.002-04:00

I knew it wouldn't go so smoothly. About 10 minutes after I left the room, Joshua started crying. I went in there and he was really upset. I tried to explain to him that he was sleeping in the big boy bed tonight but he didn't want anything to do with it. I took him to his room and rocked him in the rocking chair for a little while. My plan was to make him fall to sleep and then transfer him to the other bed but he wouldn't fall completely asleep. I ended up taking him back to Shawn's room and put him in his bed but he kept getting up and thought it was funny so I left the room and locked the door. When he got out of bed and tried to open the door, he freaked but I just yelled to him to get back in his bed and I wasn't coming in until he was in his bed (Shawn let me know when he was in his bed). I told Joshua that I would stay next to his bed until he fell asleep but if he tried to get up, I was going to leave. I think I might have left the room 2 more times before he finally got it. He finally fell asleep at 8:45pm. I'm praying that he sleeps through the night but I have a feeling it's going to be a long night!

The Big Boy Bed...

2008-05-01T19:16:00.002-04:00

Well, Joshua is in the big boy bed as I'm typing this. He's been doing great at nap time and since Shawn doesn't have school tomorrow, I decided to see if how he'll do tonight in the same room as Shawn. So far so good but it's only been about 3 minutes. I expected to hear lots of giggling but so far it's quiet. Keeping my fingers crossed.

growing up...

2008-04-29T09:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I tried to get Joshua to take a nap in the extra bed in Shawn's room. I would like to move him in there permanently in the next two weeks. My idea was to put him in his bed and I would lay down in Shawn's bed to make sure he didn't get out of bed. He was too excited though and kept giggling so I rocked him to sleep in his room and then moved him back into the bed in Shawn's room. I'm hoping today that he won't be as excited and fall asleep on his own. I figure if I can get him used to taking a nap in Shawn's room by the end of this week, I'm going to try to put him to sleep in Shawn's room this weekend (so I don't have to worry about lack of sleep and school). I really want to get rid of the crib and dresser in Joshua's room so I can start working on the room to set it up as a playroom.

Hello

2008-04-27T22:12:00.003-04:00

I just thought I'd pop in and say hi! Did you miss me? This week has been incredibly busy since starting our new diet, especially since I've been taking Shawn his lunch to school everyday. I've collected quite the kitchen gadgets too. We are now proud owners of a juicer, a food processor (it's sad that I did not have one until now), and next week we'll be getting a yogurt maker!

Shawn spent most of the afternoon playing with his legos. He's able to build some elaborate stuff by himself but today he made me an ice cream truck. Here's a picture of his creation:

The thing on top of the truck is supposed to be an ice cream cone, lol. He wanted me to keep it but I told him I would just take a picture of it and then he can use the blocks to build something else.

I cleaned off the extra bed in Shawn's room (it had tons of Hot Wheels tracks on it). I'm going start trying to get Joshua to take a nap in the bed. That should be fun, NOT! I want to start tearing down Joshua's room and set it up as a play room for daycare.

Well, we've been going to bed late every night so I'm signing off for now to get some shut eye.

Taking a blogging break

2008-04-21T19:56:00.004-04:00

I may not be posting as much as I have been. I'm super busy with our new diet. Hopefully, I'll get into a groove but right now, it seems like I'm going to the store every other day to get more produce. If you want to find out what's going on with us, check out my other blog. The link is listed over on the right.

Saturday recap...

2008-04-19T22:17:00.003-04:00

Our yard sale was a success today. We started setting up at 6am and by 8am, we had people stopping by. I didn't make as much money as I would have liked but we didn't do so bad either. The Little Tikes sports car bed frame did not sell and a few other big items didn't either. At the end of the day when Don was getting ready to clean up, he offered a couple walking through the neighborhood their choice of anything left for free just so we could get rid of it. They ended up taking the coffee table, a computer, a computer desk that Don built, and some other small items and then gave Don $20.00 for it even though Don was giving it to them for free. I just listed most of the other stuff on freecycle or freeshare (whatever it's called now). A few things did make it back in the garage but not much. Mostly clothes that I'll probably donate, a hand woven rug (that I actually bought in Dubai), and a pair of roller blades. I told Don not to give away the rug. I was ready to sell it but it's probably worth over $100.00 and I was trying to sell it at a yard sale for $50.00. People just weren't getting the fact that it wasn't a rug we bought at Wal-mart and I wasn't ready to just give it away. The roller blades were worth about $80.00 new and I had a roller blade bag to put them in. The bag itself was probably worth $20.00 but no one was even looking at them. I guess roller blading is out of style now? I'll post before and after pictures soon.

I took Shawn to get his haircut after the garage sale. I'm so happy we found Casey! Anyway, she told me that Gel-E-Beans was closed now. That was a total shock! I'm really surprised that they were doing so bad since there isn't any other kids salon around here. I guess I have to start taking Joshua to Salon 705 now too.

After a busy day, we ended the evening with dinner at my Aunt's house to visit with relatives from MD and to celebrate Joshua, Aiden, and Andy's birthday. Here's a few pics:

Reading overload!

2008-04-16T21:16:00.002-04:00

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by my reading lately. I have to read the next chapter of Full of Grace by this Sunday and I've only read the first 2 pages. I have 30 more pages to go, lol. Then Shawn's EELP teacher from last year called me the other day because she heard that Shawn was seeing a neurologist on Friday (I wonder who she heard that from, lol). I love Mrs. Barber! She is so nice and she's even one of my MySpace friends. She called to let me know that she really doesn't think Shawn is Autistic and told me she was going to send a book home with Shawn called The Out of Sync Child. I also just picked up a library book so now I have 3 books to read and no time to read (except at night when reading 2 pages makes me fall asleep). Ok, I'm going to attempt to read some of Full of Grace now. Good night.

I stand corrected...

2008-04-15T08:41:00.002-04:00

Yesterday when I came back home from dropping Shawn at school, the entire pile of trash was gone. I was in shock. I really didn't think they would take the side table, lol. When I went outside to take a picture of our trash pile, Don came out to see what I was doing with the camera. He just couldn't understand why I was taking a picture of trash. Anyway, Don said that someone must have taken the water cooler because it wasn't there anymore. I don't have a problem with someone rescuing trash to reuse but that water cooler really did need to go to water cooler heaven! If not, I would have kept it until this Saturday and tried to sell it at the garage sale. The pile didn't look nearly as big as the other day because Don broke down all the boxes and had them neatly stacked. I will post pictures after this Saturday with the other before and after pics.

For my Spirtual friends...

2008-04-13T21:50:00.002-04:00

Some of you know that I belong to another "Moms" group with my church. The group I belong to is called the Ministry Of Moms Sharing or Moms for short. Our group is kind of like a spiritual book club. We choose a book to read that usually helps us to become better moms or brings us closer to God. Some of the books we've read in the past are: MOMS A Personal Journal, Living as a Beloved Daughter of God, and Chocolate for Lent. This year, we've read Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World (which I highly recommend), Hail, Holy Queen (which was very informative but an extremely hard read! It read like a text book) and we are currently reading Full of Grace. We just finished the second chapter and I can already tell that this will be another book that I highly recommend.

On another note, I didn't even think to take a before picture of my garage. If I can make it outside in the morning before the garbage truck gets our trash, I will show you the huge pile of trash that came out of our garage. Some of it will have to go to the dump. I don't know why Don put it with the rest of the trash. Maybe he's hoping that they will take the old bedside table and the empty computer cases and monitors, lol. We still have a huge pile of "stuff" in our garage that we plan to get rid of next Saturday when we have a garage sale. I'll take a picture before we pull it all out. Anything that doesn't sell is going to Goodwill. Then I will take an after picture. That will have to do I guess.

Cleaning out the garage!

2008-04-12T06:33:00.003-04:00

Finally! We've made plans for my dad to come over and play with the kids while Don and I clean out the garage. We are going to do it Clean Sweep style and take everything out and then take things back in and put them in their place whether it is up in the attic or in a plastic bin to be put on shelving. Of course, if there is anything that we plan to sell or donate it will have to come back in also but they will be in boxes or bins labeled and neatly stacked inside the garage. It's going to be a lot of work but I've been looking forward to this day since before Christmas! I'm just so sick of the clutter and things not in place! I'm not sure how much in advance you have to advertise that you are having a garage sale but if we can get an ad in this week, we are going to have a garage sale next weekend. All proceeds go towards my juicer fund, lol. Don't worry Andrea, I'm still coming over tonight and I will even shower first, lol.

What to do?

2008-04-09T18:15:00.002-04:00

Since it's Spring Break and since Shawn was sick all last week, I figured we should get out of the house and do something fun today. I really didn't want to go too far away from home so we ended up going to the park this morning. At one point, both of the kids ended up in the recycled tire mulch pit and Joshua of course had to dump some in his hair. He was filthy! As soon as we came home I plopped him in the tub. You would not believe how much dirt and sand was in the water after I finished washing Joshua's hair. I guess I should have tried to rub some of it out before I brought him in the house. Oh well, lesson learned.

I have a sand box with a lid that I got for free from a freecycler but we haven't used it yet. Yesterday, when I was at the child care class, one of the girls gave me a great idea. She said that instead of filling the sand box with sand, fill it with rice. That keeps the kids from getting all sandy but they can still fill buckets and use dump trucks etc. I think I'm going to try and do this sometime next week and see how Joshua likes it. I still see a problem with rice being all over the yard though. I wonder if birds or squirrels will eat the rice on the ground. If so, that seems much better than having sand all over the place.

Family Child Care Class

2008-04-08T21:23:00.002-04:00

Today Don stayed home with the kids so I could attend my family child care class. It was just a consultation class that told me everything I need to do in order to get my license (which is a lot by the way). It seems like the money is quickly adding up on getting licensed. So far I've had to pay $50.00 for the pre-application, $20.00 for CPR certification, $30.00 for Basic First Aid certification, and $38.50 for fingerprinting, background check, local law enforcement check, etc. Don will also have to get the fingerprinting thing done so that will be another $38.50. Then I have to take a required 30 hr. training course that costs $96.00 and the test for that course cost $30.00. Then there's another class I have to take that costs $10.00 and the test for it which is $5.00. Then I also have to pay for the fire inspection (I'm not sure how much that cost but I think it's $45.00). That doesn't include any equipment that I will have to buy to pass inspection. I know it is required to have a wired smoke alarm with batter backup in the room the kids will be sleeping. We only have a smoke alarm in the great room (it is hard wired though). Our house is so small, it wouldn't be hard to hear from any room in the house but to pass inspection, we'll have to get an electrician to come out and hard wire another one in Joshua's room. Plus, I'm going to have to buy a child's size table and chairs, cots or nap mats, some extra outside play equipment because there has to be at least 12 outside activities for the kids, some bookcases to store toys because they have to be stored for the kids to be able to access them, I'm sure there is probably other stuff I haven't thought of yet. Luckily they consider Valrico a rural area so I qualify for a program through the Rural Social Services Partnership which will give me $1,000 to help me start my business. At least that is what I was told...I have to call tomorrow and get the details.

I was only planning on keeping a couple of kids but I may have to watch more just to make up all the money I spent getting licensed. On another note, it looks like Don will be working part-time at Lowe's again. Thank goodness, because we really need the extra money especially until I get licensed. It will probably be at least 3 months before I can get licensed since the finger printing/background check takes about 90 days to get back.