Thursday 13 - Back to Blogging!

Things have calmed down a little (okay not really) and I have a moment to actually put up a blog post. It's been awhile...but I do want to get back into blogging publicly on this blog. So...this week Thursday 13 is an update and welcome back to blogging post! Hopefully you'll see more from me in the future...as I have some great things going on!

1. The girls are doing well in school. They're both loving 5th and 2nd grade. The both love their teachers and love the things they're doing in class. So far, we haven't had any problems at all this year. This was the first day of school...they look so cute. :)

2. Both girls are in cheerleading this year and they're having a good time with it. Ashlyn was SO excited that they opened up signups for grades 1-3 this year and she was able to participate. My little diva LOVES cheering. Aubry is likes the fact that she gets a trophy at the end of the year. ;) She's on the fence about whether she wants to do cheerleading or volleyball next year. She has awhile to decide.

3. I can't believe that the year is almost over already. I woke up and it was October again! I'll be turning 31 years old this month...seems so crazy!

4. And yeah...it's October. Which means it's almost November. And this is an election year. Which means my facebook has exploded with people talking politics. I loved the thing I saw on pinterest that said pinterest makes me like people I don't know and facebook makes me dislike people I do know. ;)

5. Ashlyn turned 8 years old last month. EIGHT! My sweet little seven year old turned into a defiant little eight year old. She's always been my mama's girl and has been so good about doing what she's told. Until like the DAY she turned eight. Then it was like someone flipped a switch. Mom wants me to take a shower? NO! Hmmm. ;P

6. We celebrated Ashlyn's birthday at Chuck E Cheese this year (just like Aubry's 8th birthday). The girls had a wonderful time...but it was a lot more busy this year than two years ago for Aubry's party. The kids didn't mind at all, of course, but it started to wear on the patience of the adults. :P My dad actually went this year (it was his first experience ever at Chuck E Cheese) and I think after two minutes he'd decided that he wouldn't mind never repeating all the fun of Chuck E Cheese. ;)

7. My health has been fun lately. NOT. Had some new issues pop up that haven't been fun. My doctor decided it was time to start testing again and trying to get a definite answer. So I have an appointment with an MS specialist scheduled and hopefully that goes well.

8. Oh! I am working! I'm now the proud owner of my own cleaning business. I've been tinycandi on the internet since I was 15 and at 30 I'm not tidycandi cleaning an office. ;) It's only a couple times a month but the flexibility has been a blessing when it comes to my health issues popping up. And it's also during the afternoon while the girls are at school so it doesn't interrupt my time with them, either. It's just been a perfect opportunity.

9. I was honored to be able to take photos for another birth this year. I didn't photograph the actual birth...but I was there through almost the entire labor and several hours after delivery. It's always an amazing experience. And this one was special to me because they have become my second family and I love them dearly.

10. And speaking of my second family...I've been dating someone again! I'm sure I'll write more about it later...but suffice to say I'm incredibly happy and my life is complete. I have my girls and I have my love (and my family and friends) and life is complete. Life doesn't always give us second chances to have exactly what you want with someone and I feel very blessed that things have played out the way they have. He's an incredible man and thinking about him just makes me smile. :)

11. I've been doing a lot of studying lately...though I'm not getting through all of my books as quickly as I'd like and some of them are a little more time-consuming than others. It's not always fun reading a textbook cover to cover...especially when it's a statistics book. :P But...I'm soaking up all the information I can! It has to go in spurts...because I write my notes by hand (it helps put things in long-term memory because my short-term memory is kinda useless) and after awhile it starts to cramp. I've always had a bad habit of writing down too much...and starting over again and again so they're neat and have the information the way I want. :P Note taking with OCD is awesome! ;) lol. But...the more times I write the information the more I'll remember anyway so I'm looking at it that way. It just takes a little longer than it probably should. ;)

12. I'm SO happy that my shows (most of them, anyway) have come back from summer hiatus! I'm really, really sad that they killed off Mark Sloan on Grey's Anatomy and Pete on Private Practice...I liked both of those characters (especially McSteamy!!) but so far the shows are carrying on better than I thought they might. Law and Order SVU and NCIS have been wonderful so far. I'm trying to get used to the new girl on Criminal Minds...I miss Prentiss. Which is funny...because Prentiss was on the first episode of SVU and I actually didn't like her on it very much...I thought her acting was much better on Criminal Minds. But the episode of SVU was good and Criminal Minds is doing alright. If they get rid of David Rossi on Criminal Minds, though, I'm gonna be pretty darn upset! ;) I'm also super excited that in a few weeks Burn Notice will be back again from hiatus! I think that's my favorite show out of all of them. :) The only show I'm really sad is gone is CSI Miami. I miss Frank and Walter and even Horatio and Ryan. It was one of my favorites, too.

13. The weather has been crazy lately. A few days it's been SUPER cold (like the day it was 40 degrees and we were sitting in the bleachers watching the girls cheer for a youth football game), some are rainy (today it's 60 so it's a cold rain) and then other days it has been in the 80s. Welcome to Kansas in October! I'm not ready for the cold. I like 70s...I could handle 70s year round. :)

And there's my Thursday 13 of randomness! I will be back to blogging in full-force now! So expect to see more from me soon! :)

She's EIGHT!

My youngest daughter has turned EIGHT years old. Where does the time go?? My baby is starting to be all grown up. Her hands still seem like "baby hands" and she still has her cute baby cheeks...but her hands are bigger and her she has grown into that adorable round face. She still mispronounces some words sometimes...but she also uses big words like "apparently" and loves to say "oh my!" She used to love when I read her stories before bedtime...now she reads The Boxcar Children to me before we go to sleep. She's still a mommy's girl...but she's getting plenty of attitude and starting to test the limits just like her sister. She's growing up way too fast!

Some pictures of my little Ashlyn:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Mom VoxBox!

I don't remember exactly how I came to know about influenster.com but I think it's a really neat concept. And today my first voxbox arrived! We always love happy mail days. :) I knew it was going to be arriving soon, so for the last several days, Ashlyn has been walking out to the mailbox with me because she loves when packages arrive.

We got back home and she helped me open the box...

Here's what we've got: 

 - The Original Dish Drying Mat 

 - Stash Tea Superfruits Tea Sampler  

 - Broadway Nails imPRESS Press-On Manicure 

 - Nektar Sweetener 

 - DenTek floss (Comfort Clean and Fun Flossers) 

 - Ivory bar of soap 

 - Quaker Soft Baked Oatmeal Raisin Cookie

The first thing I noticed was the bar of Ivory soap...mostly because I could smell it. We tend to use bodywash so the bar of soap is going to my dad. He loves it. I really like the Dish Drying Mat because I don't have a dishwasher and have to wash my dishes by hand...so this will come in handy. I already like DenTek floss and the girls really liked getting some for themselves. I really don't drink tea or use sweetener so those items aren't something I'm interested in. I love Quaker stuff but raisins aren't really my thing so maybe my mom or dad will like the cookie. ;) 


The one thing that was a big hit around here was the imPRESS nails by Broadway Nails. The ones that were sent in the box were a brownish color and shorter than my own nails so I wasn't going to use them. But I do have a diva girl in my house and she was super excited about them. She looooves fingernail polish and we've used the "kid" oriented stick-on nails before she thought these were super special. The brown color also happened to match her leopard print skirt and shirt she was wearing today. 


Of course, now she's realizing that it's hard to do things like pick up little stuff when she has long nails on. I can only imagine what she's going to think if she goes to pick her nose. :P I imagine that she won't want to keep them on very long, but she still thought they were super cool. I really like the pre-colored nails and I also like that there's no glue or anything to mess with. 


Overall, not a bad box. If nothing else, I love the picture I got of Ashlyn and her nails. :) 

Thursday 13: More Random

1. This week has NOT been good. Everything just seems to go wrong. It's nothing SERIOUS...but one of those weeks where you stub your toe and then turn around and stub it again.

2. I spent the day cleaning house. Well actually I spent the first half of the day with my kids but then I cleaned house.

3. The kids and I watched movies and played board games. Aubry won two games of Sorry. I don't think she was sorry. ;)

4. I've started creating art again. I'm not painting because I don't really have a good spot in my apartment to oil paint and all of my supplies are at my mom's...but I found my colored pencils and I'm starting a few little things. I'm excited about that.

5. Still working on grad school applications. Uuugggghhh.

6. I've been all about strawberry shortcake lately. The food, not the little Hasbro doll. ;) Ashlyn likes the doll but hates the dessert...mostly because she doesn't like "whoop cream." Silly girl! ;)

7. I bought a bunch of books after I graduated...things I wanted to continue studying in the field. I still have yet to finish the one I started first. :P I'm more than halfway done now, though! I just don't make a lot of time to read. I sit down and read 10-20 pages and then I start thinking of all the other things I need to do. Most of my reading occurs when I'm waiting. I got most of the pages read when I was in waiting rooms at the doctor's office and the DMV. :P

8. It's probably really sad that my leisure reading consists of books about criminal psychology, substance abuse, and social work theories. :P

9. Friday I will be spending the day going to garage sales with my dad. :) We've gone together the last couple years and it's always fun. I don't really spend a whole lot of time with my dad because we just don't have much in common (other than our personalities!), he's a dude so small talk usually consists of him talking about his glory days, and most of the time he's playing outside with my kids. But a whole day buying someone else's junk that we probably don't need...that's always good times. :)

10. I don't have cable but I have all my TV shows on DVD. I tend to cycle through all my favorite shows and have daily marathons of whatever show I happen to be fixated on at the time. Currently it's Grey's Anatomy. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan is so yummy. It came to me the first time I saw McSteamy on the show and now I can't see my McSteamy without thinking of the resemblance.

11. I really, really like riding on the back of the motorcycle. SO relaxing and fun. It's probably been one of my favorite "me" things to do so far this spring/summer. :)

12. The girls can't wait to go back to Botanica. The butterfly house opened this week and they're SO excited to see it again. We also need to go to the zoo and children's museum again.

13. Mostly we've been busy with a whole lot of softball. From yesterday until June 22, one of the girls has a game EVERY weeknight. That's a lot of softball. I'm not really too happy with Aubry's level this year. We are a rec team and some of the teams we're playing are competitive teams. The difference in experience is HUGE. This is the first year for our girls to be playing kid pitch and some of the other teams...they're 9 and 10 year olds and they're throwing hard and fast. It wouldn't be that bad...except two games now the other team has hit at least four of our players. These girls seem to have lots of speed but absolutely no control. It just irritates me. But...I'm not a fanatical die-hard sports fan, either, so...maybe it's just me. :P

Too late for Wordless Wednesday...

Aubry had a softball game yesterday and I forgot to post my Wordless Wednesday photos...so I will post them today. :)

I went with Ashlyn's class for their Zoo trip. It was probably my best experience chaperoning a field trip. I had three kids in my group (including Ashlyn) and they were SO well behaved. Ashlyn and one of her best friends stuck pretty close together and the little boy stuck with me. He was my pal...kept telling the girls they needed to wait for us and chatted with me about all the animals. All three of them were posing all around the zoo wanting me to take their pictures. It was cute. :) It was definitely a great day! Here are a couple of the many pictures I took...








And here are a few pictures of the girls on our trip to Botanica for the Teddy Bear Picnic. My mom took some of these pictures because I was sick for the last half of our trip...but she did a good job with my camera. :)



Cool fountain...and a picture of me and the girls:


Listening to story time...

GREAT Weekend

I'm awake with a massive headache. And vertigo. Vertigo is horrible. HORRIBLE. It's like...if you were to ride a swirling, twisting amusement park ride over and over and over...and then stop the ride. That feeling where the world still feels like it's spinning and you're going to throw up? That's what vertigo feels like. The room is SPINNING. I'm actually not too bad...until I lay down. I've had vertigo off and on before but it wasn't until the last year or so that it started to cause problems when I'm laying down...which kinda sucks when I want to sleep. I can't sleep sitting up...never have been able to recline and sleep. I guess except in a hospital bed where there is a squishy mattress and I can lift the foot of the bed, too. But at home...no.

For some people, vertigo is an ear problem. My mom has had it and the doctor told her it had something to do with "crystals" in her inner ear or something. Mine is a brain thing instead of an ear thing...just one more thing on the list of MS symptoms that I deal with. But...I have some meclizine and that usually helps a little bit. So hopefully I will be able to sleep soon. :)

But anyway...aside from that I had a really great weekend. Friday night, my oldest had a softball game. It was here and aside from being REALLY WINDY it was a pretty good game. She just started her first year of kid pitch so there's a lot of crazy pitches and walking instead of strikes and actually hitting the ball. But luckily there is a 5 run limit PLUS a 1.5 hour time limit. So that helps. After the game we came home and had dinner and showers and then went to bed kinda early since we had to be up early the next morning.

Saturday morning we headed to Botanica for their annual "Teddy Bear Picnic." They had groups of teddy bears set up around the children's garden and the girls had a lot of fun seeing everything. Of course, I got sick about half an hour after we got there. I handed off my camera to my mom and spent the rest of our visit in the bathroom. :-/ I've been having a lot of digestive problems lately which may or may not be related to my adhesive disease (where the organs in the abdomen are fused together by scar tissue). BUT...after a looong half hour or so, I met up with mom and the girls to finish walking back through the garden to leave.

I haven't finished the pictures but here is a quick one that I snapped before we left the children's garden (I'll try to share more on Wordless Wednesday):

Afterwards, we came back into town and went to my grandparents' house. It was my grandma's birthday and a bunch of the family came over for LOTS of food and good times. The adults chatted and the kids played outside all evening until it started thundering. We stayed until about 8pm or so and then we came home, showered, and stayed up watching movies. Well...I stayed up. They played hard and fell asleep before our movie was even over. ;)

Today was a relaxing day. We slept in a little bit and lounged around during the morning. Then the girls got dressed to play outside for a bit. It was muddy from the storm last night so they mostly rode their scooters around. It was cut short, though, because poor Ashlyn got stung by a wasp. It had apparently made its way into her shirt because she got stung THREE times on her stomach. It was my first experience with bee/wasp stings as a mother and I didn't like it. :( Poor kid was crying so hard. She came inside and we put an ice pack on it right away. One of them had already swollen quite a bit. She laid down on the couch while Aubry did some dishes and I fixed lunch. After lunch Ashlyn was feeling better. The two spots on her ribs were just two little dots and not red at all. The lower one on her stomach was still a bit red and swollen. I made a water/baking soda paste and covered it with a bandage to help even more. Then she was feeling all better and wanted to go play at my grandparents' house again. I let them go over for about an hour while I showered and cleaned house a bit. They got home and we had just enough time to play a couple games of Candyland before they had to go to their dad's house.

I actually got out of the house for once and went to spend the evening with a friend of mine. It was nice to just go DO something for awhile. I haven't been feeling well a lot lately so I have been kind of a homebody. But I actually dried my hair and put some make-up on and wore something other than my ratty house shoes. ;) Very low-key but great evening. And yay for Walmart being open 24-hours because I needed to stop and get a few groceries and things on my way home. Now...here I am. :) All in all...pretty good weekend!

Thursday 13 - Random Thoughts

1. Today I got the phone call from the eye doctor saying that Ashlyn's glasses were in! She's been waiting since last Friday and asked everyday if they called yet. So I picked her up from school this afternoon to go get them. She looks SO adorable in them...and she's pretty excited. I'm definitely hoping they will help with the issues she is having at school with reading and writing. We have exercises to do for her eyes as well...to help with her tracking/focusing.

2. Had lunch today at the Dillon's Bistro...we went with Chinese. If the Dillons that I usually go to has Teriyaki chicken, I've never had it. But that's what I had today and it was really good! A little messy...but it tasted good. :)

3. I think it's really, really cute that Ashlyn always calls her hands her "paws."

4. Aubry is growing up way too fast. She is already starting to get that teenager attitude going. I thought I would have a few years more with my sweet baby girl before heading into that stage of her life. :P

5. My super awesome friend, Kelli, gave me two boxes of girl scout cookies. I just finished the box of Peanut Butter Patties and I'm trying really, really hard not to devour the box of Lemonades all in one sitting. :P

6. We have had some pretty crazy weather here lately. I've really liked the warm days. Early this morning we had a thunderstorm with lots of sleet and some snow. I like thunderstorms...minus the cold weather. :P

7. I've been really enjoying the website sneakpeeq.

8. I wish we had more than one company in this area that provides phone, cable, and internet service.

9. I wish my tv shows were new this week! It seems like every show I like except Once Upon a Time and CSI Miami was a rerun. Booo.

10. I've been on a CSI Miami kick lately. Walter and Tripp are my favorites. In recent years I really like Ryan, too. I really like when Yelina makes an appearance, too. I wonder if they will ever bring back Suzie and Madison?

11. I'm still working on trying to finish all these pictures I've taken lately. I did get a lot of cute ones, though. Here's one of my favorites that I took of my newest niece:

I have nicknamed her Bebe...because that's what it sounds like when her big sister (who I nicknamed Bug) says "baby."

12. I also need to catch up on posting my 366 day photo project pictures. I have been taking them everyday...just not always good about posting them in a very timely manner. I think I did better when I was doing the 366 days of self-portraits because I had joined the flickr group and had a time limit of when they could be posted to the group. But I haven't used flickr in a long time.

13. I have a headache and I would really like to go to bed...but I have vertigo and it really doesn't get that bad until I lay down. So...hopefully the medicine will kick in and I can get some sleep.

And one more final thought...I'm not sure why I keep adding the label "meme" to my posts since it seems almost every single post has been a meme of some kind. :P

WWTK - Week 47

Hosted by Mamarazzi, Queso and Crazymama


{1} What is your favorite way to celebrate birthdays? - I love to go out to dinner. Simple...but I like it. :)
{2} Which is more fun to celebrate? Celebrating yours or your loved ones? - Oh always celebrating other birthdays. I love to spoil my loved ones. :) And I'm not really a "center of attention" kind of person. Take me to dinner, tell me happy birthday...nothing else. My mom and I feel the same way about our birthdays. But now my kids...I absolutely LOVE preparing their parties and doing special things for their birthdays. My mom was the same way with us. And for the girls' first three birthdays, she makes their birthday dresses (just like she did with me and my sister). And because I LOVE their birthdays...here are some pictures (and we're big on themes!):
Aubry's 1st Birthday - Sesame Street

...and her birthday dress:

Aubry's 2nd Birthday - Finding Nemo

...and her birthday dress:

Aubry's 3rd Birthday - Carebears

...and the famous 3rd bday dress my mom has made for me, my sister, both my girls, and will make for both my nieces (same pattern, different colors)

Ashlyn's 1st Birthday - Unicorns

...and her dress:

Aubry's 4th Birthday - Dora
...she wore one of my old dresses that my mom made

Ashlyn's 2nd birthday - Strawberry Shortcake
...didn't get good pictures of the decor but she had a cute dress and outfit:

Aubry's 5th Birthday - Happy Feet

Ashlyn's 3rd birthday - My Little Pony

...and the dress my mom made:

Aubry's 6th birthday we had a party at the zoo with some friends.
Ashlyn's 4th Birthday - Blue's Clues
...the first year I actually made the cakes.

Aubry's 7th birthday we planned a luau but it rained. :-/ So we had cake and food at two of my grandparents' houses.
Ashlyn's 5th birthday - Disney Princess
...she wore one of my old dresses

Aubry's 8th birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese

Ashlyn's 6th birthday we went to my grandparents' house then went to a fall festival and Old Cowtown Museum with my parents.
Aubry's 9th birthday we went to Great Wolf Lodge and plan to go back for Ashlyn's 9th. They got their first pedicures and free ice cream.

And Ashlyn's 7th birthday was a cupcake theme at Paint the Towne


{3} What is your dessert of choice for birthday celebrating? - I really, really love the strawberry chantilly cake that we get from a local bakery here. Okay...so if someone wants to get me one of those cakes for my birthday, I'm okay with that, too. ;)
{4} Tell us about your best birthday you've ever had. - I've really had a lot of amazing birthdays. When I was a kid...my mom went all out and it really made our birthdays special. How about some more pictures?!
Smurfette!

Carebear 3rd Birthday - Same dress pattern as my kids!

And probably my favorite...Rainbow Brite for my 4th Birthday!


I mean...seriously. Look at this! My mom drew these! And that dress is the same one Aubry wore for her 4th birthday...

{5} Share your favorite birthday song - Hm...can't really think of a birthday song that I like.
{6} Bonus Question: if you could pick any age to be again, how old would you be and why? I would only want to go backward if I could approach life with the knowledge I have now. And...I'd actually probably go back to my 9th birthday. I wouldn't have quit dance, wouldn't have paid so much attention to boys as I got older, and I would have focused more on homework (instead of boys!) and gone away somewhere to college right after high school. But...my life is pretty good as it is so I can't complain. ;)