Back Home Again in Indiana.

We are taking our Spring Break this year in Indiana....and it starts tomorrow! What this has meant to me the past week:

1. Make multiple lists.
2. Clean entire house so when we willl not have a mess to come home to.
3. Couple more lists.
4. Pack EVERYTHING.
5. Clean out car.
6. Oil change.
7. A few more lists couldn't hurt.
8. Gas up the truck.
9. Load the truck.
10. Lay out clothes for the next morning...ready to roll.
11. Last but not least, review final checklist to make sure we have everything.

Hmm....guess I just made another list, a public one. Everyone share in my sickness!

Cannot wait to see everyone!

Taking Down the Wall....paper.

When we purchased our home, we knew that we would have to change the color of all the boys' rooms. David's room is a lovely shade of pink and the other bedroom is a mixture of pink, peach, and some other girly hues.

I suppose we made the boys put up with these colors long enough so we started taking down wallpaper border in the multi-colored room. Of course, it couldn't just be normal border. The previous owners had it done very fancy-like for their daughter. On top of the border there was stenciled plaster in the shape of leaves. Let me just say, it was a great time to grab the ol' spackle knife and scrape and scrape some more. Finally, the job was done, and I only had a few battle scars (better than usual).

Now...we move on to the paint....WAH!! I have to say that I am still burnt out from painting the entire house in Indiana right before we sold it.

Chris offered to hire painters, but I thought I needed to take the project on myself. I should have just kept my mouth shut....must have been hormonal that day. I can always count on my eager estrogen to kick in.

Hopefully, it will not take me as long to paint as it did to remove the border....we will see.

I Will Take....umm, 1 Day at the Park and Hold the Sunburn, Please.

Okay, I was a very irresponsible parent last Friday. Typically, I am the world's largest advocate for applying sunblock, but I didn't really think about it since it isn't even spring yet....DUH! I do live in Southwest Arkansas now!! So anyway, after we were home for a little bit and I had scrubbed the skin off of my child, (see previous post for that story) I noticed that Braydon had sort of like a raccoon shaped mask from the ol' sun. I felt like such a goofball....which I do come from a long line of, but that is beside the point. My baby had a sunburn and it was all my fault.

It was time for Chris to come home and I knew he was not going to be very pleased with my handy work. I applied some lotion to his little reddened face and Braydon was doing alright. At least he didn't act like it was painful. So, in walks my hubbie and he notices our little scorched stinker. He gave Braydon big hugs and gave me, "the look". He then reminded me that we had bought an aloe plant. Alright! I had totally forgotten about it, which also meant I forgot to water it and put it in the sun occasionally. Well thank goodness that our aloe plant was an extremely low maintenance one, because it was still standing and green!

I grabbed a piece and squeezed, out came the aloe. I put it all over Braydon's ow-ies. He looked at me like I was crazy during the application, but he allowed it.

A couple hours later it was getting close to bedtime so we did our nightly routine. I put on Braydon's pajamas and he said to me, "Mommy, are you going to put more salad on my face"?

After nearly wetting my pants, I put the kids to bed and we waited to have salad until breakfast the next day.

FYI....Braydon's mask has left the building....thanks to our old friend, salad.

Water Logged.

It's Friday, so we went to the park to have our weekly play group fun. It was going to be wonderful, the sun was shining and it was just a beautiful day. We had an Easter egg hunt and then a nice pitch in lunch afterwards. The kids were having a blast (they were digesting sugar by the second) and we, the moms, were enjoying eachother's company.

We stayed a little longer than usual because it was so nice outside we couldn't force ourselves to leave Mother Nature. I saw Braydon just having a delightful time with his friends by the swings. I knew there was water underneath them, but I didn't really think that much about it. One of the ladies in the group said, "Amber, you should go check out our ninos". I walked over to find my boy laying down in the pooled water. He had playground covering (chopped up tires) in every crevice of his body. He was just hanging out on his belly like a frog on his lilly pad sunning himself. Life was good for Braydon. Then he continued his water voyage by taking his play stroller and running through the water like he was competing for a monster truck show.

Now, for those of you who know me well, you know that I have a little problem (okay, maybe more than little) with OCD and anxiety about getting dirty. (I have a few more crazy quirks, but who's counting, right?) I have made remarkable strides towards being "more normal" though. I actually laughed this one off and it felt kinda good!?! Weird, huh?

Anyway, I stripped Braydon down, (I haven't come far enough to put him in my truck looking like that) then put a flannel shirt of Chris' on him, and buckled him in. Braydon really liked riding bare-butt to flannel in the truck. It must be the Arkansas influence, hehe. When we arrived home, I immediately put him in the tub and scrubbed him down....whew, all better now. I can breathe again.

It sounded like I was doing better for a minute, didn't it? Well, a girl can't ask for everything all at once now, can she!

Braydon had a great day at the park and Mommy had a great day of psycho-therapy! Oh yeah, I also had a marvelous time visiting with all my super gal pals!

We've Been Hit!!!

Last night I was on the computer and all of a sudden my browser had changed and I had a mysterious new toolbar in place?? I kept trying to close out this screen, but no luck! It was pageforsafety.com. Little did I know that this is a virus and it was overtaking our computer. AAAHHH! I researched this bug and found out that spyhunter, a spyware program, could beat this thing. We downloaded it, paid the required thirty bucks, and we were on our way. This spyware program found over 100 parasites on our computer. HOLY COW! I am still really nervous because I do not know if any of our personal information was leaked in the "repairing mode".

The thing that really upsets us is that Norton Antivirus kept stating that everything was fine. We did a full system scan and it came back perfect...yeah right! We pay a lot of money to update Norton every year, but we may check into another software program.

We were also amazed at how authentic these "fake" webpages were. They had seals of authenticity, spyware links, and a lot of garb that definitely could fool ya'! (Well, maybe not a real computer guru, but I am nothing close to that.)

I hope we are fixed...if we are not, this could be the last post on this blog for a while! Hehe.

And I Thought Indiana Weather was Bizarre!

Tornado sirens blared and meteorologists earned their pay yesterday. The city of Nashville was under a tornado warning all morning long. Chris called me and the plant had taken cover. Hmmm...maybe something is going to happen...it was about 65 degrees outside and we were experiencing a torrential downpour of rain, but no winds or anything of a tornadic nature! I think somebody in town became siren happy, just my thoughts, though. Finally the rain subsided, the ground swallowed most of the water, and the temperature dropped (no tornadoes here, whew! I guess there was some damage about 40 miles from us, but I was more worried about flooding than anything)....gonna be a cold front coming through we are told....

We wake up this morning and there is about 1 1/2 or 2 inches of SNOW on the ground...WHAT???!! This is so weird! It was mid 60s yesterday!

So, the boys wanted to play in the snow and build snowmen, but by the time we did our morning routines and were ready to go outside.....the snow was gone! (I was ok with this since I do not like snow and I have been under the weather for a few days.) Anyway, it came, it teased us, and it left....my poor hoosier, snow loving kids. Que sera sera....

Bu-Bye, my friend.

Well, the day finally came that Braydon had to give up his passy. It was not as bad as we had thought, but I think Braydon disagreed. The daytime hours were not that bad...we went to Hot Springs to visit the science museum so he did not really think about it. Then came bedtime and this is how it went down.....

Time for bed Braydon....

Braydon: "Where's my pas?"

You do not get it anymore, remember? You are a big boy now.

Braydon: "I not a big boy, I'm your baby!" (he had furrowed brows and some would say it was in a mild yelling tone) "Ok, Fine!"

So off to bed he went with, of course, his teddies. He moaned a little fake cry on the monitor (Yes, I still do the monitor thing. I know he is three now, but it's a sickness) and whined for a few minutes. The next thing ya know.....Braydon is in our bedroom...

Braydon: "Mommy, I have to potty."

No, you don't buddy, you just went ten minutes ago.

Braydon: "Yes, Mommy, I have to go."

So, to the potty we went and he squeezed out what I think was maybe two drops and then we proceeded back to his bed. He again asked for his passy.

Five minutes later...

Braydon: "Mommy, I have a fingernail (Braydonism for hangnail), help me."

Ok, come here and let me fix it.
So I fixed the present problem and he was satisfied and went back to his bed. He again asked for his passy.

Five minutes later....

Braydon opens up our bedroom door and says, "Mommy, I tooted" with a grin from ear to ear. We told him to get back in bed, after quietly laughing , and he again asked for his passy.

This went on for a couple of hours until he finally just gave up and fell asleep.

The next morning he did ask for it one time, but when he found out I was not giving in he was just fine. No damage done. Today is his fifth day without it and I will have to admit that I miss seeing it in his face. He still looked like such a little baby when he was plugged. It's hard to see them grow so quickly. What do you do??? Just one more step he has taken on his way to grown up-ville.