Disneyland with Princess Jasmine x2

This was such a fun trip to Disneyland! One of the best! Katie and Andrew came with us and we loved having them along to share our day.

When we were approaching Disneyland and sitting at the red light on the corner of Harbor Blvd and Ball Road (you can't really see Disneyland yet because an overpass is in the way), Libby starts pointing and squealing and waving her arms in excitement. She knew! She knew where we were! She is 18 months old and she knows the approach to the Happiest Place on Earth - How cool is that!

We ended up parking in the Jesse Parking Lot, not the best, but it wasn't too bad. There were plenty of buses shuttling people from the Toy Story parking lots as opposed to the minimal number of buses that transported people from the Pongo parking lot last November. I don't like having to park in the overflow parking lots because that just means the whole day will be nothing but crowds and long lines. This was true in some parts of the park, but in other areas it really wasn't bad at all.

We got in the ticket line because I needed a new annual pass. There wasn't anyone in the lines for tickets! We were at the window swiping my credit card in no time. This time I added the parking pass to it. It was expensive, but taking these little princesses to the Happiest Place on Earth is well worth it when they are this enchanted by the Disney magic. And, we made Walt happy, right?

We went up Main Street, through the castle, up and inside the castle to see the Sleeping Beauty story, rode the carousel, went through the Small World, saw the Princesses, toured Toon Town, rode Winnie the Pooh, and went to the Tiki Room. All of those things were very very fun. But the highlights of the day were the Celebration Street Party Parade where Gracie got to dance with Pooh Bear and the Princess Tiana Show where Gracie got to go up and dance with Tiana and play a tambourine! We also tried two rides for the first time: The Pirates of the Caribbean and Alice in Wonderland caterpillar ride.

The Pirate ride was pretty dark and scary, but we made it through without any crying. A wee bit of screaming, but that was just me. You ride a boat through this ride, very similar to Small World. But as you go into a dark tunnel, your boat takes a dive down a steep slope. Not far, but far enough that you sploosh at the bottom of the slope and get splashed. Then, it happens again. This is right where Libby woke up from her nap. In the dark pirate cove in a boat, splashed with cold water while falling down a river. She was wide-eyed and clung to me fast and hard through the whole ride. Gracie clung to Katie for dear life through the first half of the ride, then when we finally got to the cute puppets, she was fine and had fun. When we left the ride, Gracie was singing "Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a pirate's life for me", so I think she had a good time on that ride.

The Alice in Wonderland ride is one I've never been brave enough to try. The reason is: back in June of 1997 when Katie was 8 and Lexie was 6, we stood in line for this ride. It was a hot day and the shade of the two big trees was refreshing while standing in that long line. We worked our way back and forth toward the front of the line when the unthinkable happened. Directly overhead, a big fat bird in the tree released all of his pent up poop and it landed ON MY HEAD! This must have been a 5 gallon bird. It was all over my head, down my neck, on my shoulder and down my front and my back and on my arm. I screamed under the white slime and the crowd parted like I was Moses. I ran screaming and people pointed the way to the bathroom as I ran by looking like a horror film character. The ladies room had a line, but everyone backed away and let me through and I stuck my head in the sink and tried to wash up as best I could. Of course, nobody helped me, ewww, yuck. Luckily, my long hair was pulled back tight, gelled and braided, so it didn't penetrate much through my helmet hair. I was able to wash off pretty good but now my shirt was poopy and wet too, so I ran over to the nearest gift shop and bought a new shirt. When I got back to the Alice in Wonderland ride to meet up with my husband and daughters (pre-cell phone era, I was just hoping they'd be there), I saw them emerging from the ride on a caterpillar. The girls were all smiles. Since that day, I haven't been brave enough to stand under those trees in the Alice in Wonderland ride again.

Today, we did it. We waited till it was dark to avoid birds. It worked! We successfully made it to the caterpiller cars and boarded a pink caterpillar! Poop Free! The little car went into the ride and just as we entered the "rabbit hole" and went over the little peak for the gentle drop into the rabbit hole and Alice's Wonderland when our caterpillar car jerked to a complete stop. We were maybe 3 or 4 feet into the ride. All the lights came on and an announcement that the ride was broken, stay put and a Disney cast member would come help us soon. 20 minutes later, they found us in the rabbit hole and let us out of our caterpillar. We had to walk through part of the ride and they opened an emergency exit door and let us out.

Score: Alice 2, Mary 0.

Oh, by the way, the Princess Jasmine costumes were a big hit! The girls were comfortable, the costumes held together and they were just adorable! We heard comments from people all day long about how cute the little Jasmines were. Here is a pic of both of them. Libby didn't get beads, but now that I had to spend a day man-handling her all day, I'm glad I skipped the beads on her outfit. Here are both the girls in all their Princess Jasmine Glory.

The Roadtrips

My mom and my sister are roadtripping their way west and home again. They went from Montana/Wyoming to Napa, California. It's a two-day drive for them, but the second day isn't as long as the first. They spent the night in Nevada in both directions and found good places to stop and eat along the way. They ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe! Fun times!

They sound like they are having a good trip, despite the purpose of the journey. They went on this whirlwind trip because Great Aunt Spuddie passed away; Mom and Sis went to the services.

Katie got in her car Friday evening and began her coast to coast roadtrip. We've spoken several times since she's been on the road. Here are the trip details ... I'll update as I hear from her, so check back for new updates! And you can refer to the map in the last post if you'd like, just click it to make it big enough to view.

Friday 7:30 pm PST - The great adventure begins!

Saturday 10:00 am MST - Almost to Albuqueque, New Mexico. Stopped and napped for a couple of hours somewhere.

Saturday, 4:30 Central - Stopped at Starbucks in Amarillo, Texas. She notes that Texas has a lot of ugly scrubby little bushes.

Saturday late afternoon - She saw Cadillac Ranch, the Giant Cross (which she thought was kind of creepy), and the tilted water tower. Entering Oklahoma, she didn't see a big "Welcome to Oklahoma" sign. What is up with that?

Saturday Evening - Oklahoma is kinda old and ghetto. She stopped in Oklahoma City at Subway. Yum.

Saturday 10:15 pm Central - Listening to an oldies radio station. Sure are a lot of church signs! A coyote ran in front of her car.

Saturday 11:30 pm Central - Leaves Oklahoma and enters Arkansas. The speed limit changes at the border from 75 to 70mph. Katie immediately gets pulled over for going 80. She agrees to make a donation to the great state of Arkansas, as requested on her ticket.

Sunday 12:30 pm Central time - Just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. She stopped and slept for a while in a Super Walmart parking lot after driving all night. She has gone 2000 miles so far and only has 500 left to go!

Sunday 6:15 pacific time, 9:15 Eastern, She arrived in Charleston! 47 hours!!!

My sister dropped my mom at her house in Wyoming and is almost home to her house in Montana. They had a good roadtrip too!

Emptying the Nest

Our oldest daughter got married in June, and I was fine with that, but now she's moving out. I'm not as excited about this!

Her husband (wow, that is weird to say) is in the Navy and stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. Like newlyweds, they want to live together. Crazy kids. Don't they know living on opposite coasts makes a marriage strong!

She's living here, he's living there. They have been patiently waiting for the Navy to put them up in base housing and give him permission to send for his new little wife. Permission Granted! He has keys to a three bedroom cottage on the Navy base and she can join him on the other coast.

The Navy will come and get their stuff, all except for Katie's car. They'll fly her across the country, but not the car. It'll cost a grand to get the car shipped over there. However... driving it across will take aprox 95 gallons of gas costing around $300. Not a hard decision to make when you do the math.

We got her all moved out of our house. She boxed up everything she owns and their wedding gifts, and we loaded it up along with: a flock of guitars, her queen sized bed, her dresser and mirror(which is the biggest bureau ever made), gigantic nightstand, and a futon. She also took a bike for fun! Everything went to her In-Laws' home where the Navy will pick it up. Aren't they lucky!

Tonight, after its dark and cooler across the high desert, Katie is leaving for Charleston. Driving her car across the nation, singing songs and talking on her cell phone the whole way. Nothing but a girl and the road. And probably a cup of coffee and a cooler full of pop and snacks for 2495 miles.

She's going to pass through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, a little corner of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and then, she'll drive across South Carolina to find her new home.

If you see her, smile and wave!

More Wedding Photos

Everyone at the wedding watched it through a camera. When I looked back, all I saw were people with cameras stuck to their faces. Yay! This makes for lots of wedding photos!

The professional photograher did an amazing job! His photos aren't bloggable since he has them all password protected, but, here are a few from my sister!

Other guests are slowly sharing their shots. Can't wait to see more! Here are a few for your blogging pleasure courtesy of Mrs. Caveman

Wedding Photos

Our photographer, Micheal Fletcher, was amazing! He already has the wedding photos online in a password protected album, but he has these two photos on his flickr site for public view (which means I can share them on my blog!). For those of you who do not have access to the wedding album, I thought I would share these two pictures of my girl.






Oh, and I have this one that I sort of stole from his site, I hit print screen!

She's married!

I'm home from the wedding, it's 1am, I'm in my jammies and out of all things that lift and bind, I have a glass of wine and my feet up. Ahhhhhh... feels so good!

It was the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to in my life. And Katie was the prettiest bride I have ever seen in real life and movies, she was absolutely stunning!

I charged my batteries, cleared my memory cards and took both of my cameras. Got there and thought, what am I thinking, I'm not taking pics, I'm just going to enjoy! And I did! First photo I took was when we got home and Gracie looked so adorable sleeping in her poofy flowergirl dress. What a cutie!

Everyone had such a wonderful time. The wedding went as smooth as if it had been planned for years by experts. And now I have a son. Life is good.

Because she's getting married...

I just have to share this little tidbit of a memory from a few years back.

We used to send her to 4-H Camp every summer for a week or so. When she got older she went for three weeks. Ahhh, good times!

Anyway, when she was 12 or 13... far too young in my opinion for learning what you are about to learn that she learned... she came home from camp and stepped in the front door dropping all her stinky smelly stuff and she says with a big proud grin...

"Guess what I did at camp?!?" We could feel her excitement radiating. This had to be good! We guessed all sorts of cool things: Swim all the way across the lake? Hit the target in archery? Get to work in the concession stand? Make some cool craft? An award for having a clean cabin? What? What? What amazing accomplishment did our little girl do this summer?

"I kissed a boy behind the bathhouse!" Big grin.

We settled back into the couch cushions and went pale and numb. Speechless.

This little girl is getting married in two days. I wish her well, especially when her sweet children come home from camp and announce how much they've broadened their horizons. Marriage is when you are speechless together, feel each other's feelings in exactly the same way, and ride that roller coaster from proud to stunned in no time flat - together. She's lucky and has a good guy to spend the rest of her life with; I'm so glad it's not the kid who kissed her behind the bathhouse at camp.

Bridezilla, Gradzilla, Pottyzilla and Boobyzilla

They aren't princesses every day. Lately, they are more monster than they are princess.

Bridezilla. There is only three weeks until her wedding. She has a ton of things to do! She is really feeling the pressure of deadlines now. In the last couple of weeks, she's gotten a lot done! But, there's always more. So very much more! Her bridesmaids, all six of them, don't know how to be bridesmaids! They should be helping her, but these bridesmaids are all pretty young and are not educated in the fine art of bridesmaidery. One of them told her that it is the job of the Mother of the Bride to plan and hostess a Bridal Shower, so go ask your mom when and where it is. This Mother of the Bride wasn't planning on throwing a bridal shower, this MOB was planning to attend one! I don't think the bridesmaids know that I was finishing college, and have 4 kids and a house being redone, and not enough hours in the day! So, they decided that since Katie's mom flipped out and is mean and horrible and isn't supportive of her bride daughter, they felt sorry for her and planned a Bridal Shower. The theme is panties. I'm invited. Hmm, That's what I get for not doing it myself I guess, oh well, it's a bridal shower and that's all that matters at this point. In the meantime, Bridezilla wants me to "help" (meaning do it and she'll let me know how I should have done it better but its fine the way it is) make boutonnieres for the men, find and decorate a garden arch for the ceremony, pick up and set up the cake on wedding day, get bubbles and make the containers all weddingish, teach Gracie how to walk like a flowergirl, and whatever else she can come up with. I should just be ready to jump in and do anything that needs to be done, and why oh why do I have to bring the little girls with me everywhere I go? Geez, Mom!

Gradzilla is extremely apathetic and does all she can to avoid talking about her high school graduation. We don't even have senior pictures done yet! Or announcements! I finally figured this out. Maybe she's avoiding because she isn't going to graduate. Hmmm. So, I called the school counselor in a panic. Sure enough, she's graduating, but she still has time to blow it. We're throwing a graduation party for her the Sunday after graduation. She's not so sure she'll show up. Ha, kid, I'll chain you to the fence, you will be there for your own party! (I won't really, but a mom can threaten) We're having "The Taco Man" cater the party and we'll have Karaoke going on too. We've got about 50 people coming. Of course, they'd all like a graduation announcement, that would be nice. I'm going to make one and use her kindergarten picture. Bet that'll get her to cooperate in a hurry! Her 18th birthday is a week before graduation. She is pretty sure that means Freedom! Little does she know, she lives under my dictatorship! Hahaha!

Pottyzilla is peeing everywhere! What is up with the sudden piddle puddles all over the place! When does the potty training end and accidents become a thing of the past? She's not always in the mood to go potty, sometimes she just cannot be bothered with such nonsense. I'm running out of ideas to motivate her. But, the other day I thought of a good one! I put her baby sister on the potty! And guess what! The baby peed on the potty! Not to be outdone, Gracie suddenly wanted to go too. And she did! The next day, I did it again and baby sister peed on the potty again! Not even 8 months old and she was showing up her big sis. Since then I haven't been lucky enough to get the timing right for a repeat performance, but she got the idea that if the baby can do it, she can too. In the meantime, she's peeing all over the place like a scared puppy. Driving me crazy!

Bobbyzilla still won't eat. She sure enjoys finger painting with her baby food. She loves to let the dog lick it off of her fingers! She gets it everywhere except near her mouth! Oh the faces she makes! We think she has food allergies, but not sure what all is included in her allergies if she really does have them. One day she had baby food bananas, she of course hated it. But she got enough of a taste that she broke out in hives. Another day, she picked up her big sister's banana peel and stuck that in her mouth (because anything on the floor is good to eat!) and she broke out in hives. I'm pretty sure she's allergic to bananas. I asked the pediatrician about her not eating, no desire to eat. She only nurses! The pediatrician said she's 20 lbs, stop worrying. She'll eat someday. And if she isn't eating in a few months we'll have her tested for food allergies. I think I'll have her tested anyway because of the banana reactions.

All four of the girls are busy in their own way. All of them going in their own direction. Busy with their own thing. And there is four of them and only one of me! Yikes! I'm doing my best to keep up as Mother of the Bride, Mother of the Grad, Potty Training Teacher and Breastfeeder Extrodinaire. But lately, I'm more of a monster-tamer in this four-ring circus!

Valley Idol

My favorite singer in the whole wide world is competing in a local "idol" contest. Wish my Katie good luck! She'll have the other contestants shaking in their boots! er, flip flops... this is California

Funny thing is, she didn't even know about this contest. It is hosted at a pizza place where my next door neighbor works and she told my other daughter to hurry and call Katie and have her run down there to compete. That was last week. Katie made the cut to the semi-finals which is tonight and the finals are next week.

Next week, Katie will be unavailable. She's busy next Thursday night so she can't even finish the competition, but its fun so why not sing again tonight. The winner gets a cruise to Mexico. It'll be fun to see if she makes the cut tonight anyway.

The Girls: Katie & Lexie

The Girls. When I say “the girls” I really only mean Katie & Lexie. I guess I still haven’t completely figured out how many daughters I have. These two were always “the girls” and they always will be.

Lexie is always busy and now there are only 9 weeks left of her senior year. She has to finish her classes, complete her required community service (students are required to do 40 hrs), do her time in Saturday school, and then there is Prom, Sr. Trip, Sr. day at Knotts Berry Farm, Sr. Cruise, Grad Night, etc. And then we have to get her Sr. pictures done, make and mail announcements, finish planning her party, buy her tassel and dresses for all these occasions, etc. Her birthday is coming up too!

She still works at Shakey’s. In fact, she’s the game-room leader. She’s not as enchanted with her job as she was in the beginning. A few of the other employees have jerks and she’s had to handle some sticky situations. One guy, while working, cracks open a can of beer that he had in his apron pocket and is drinking while working – Right in front of Lexie! What’s she supposed to do? She let the management know, hey, doofus over there is drinking a beer… that ended up being quite a mess because there are 50 managers and each and every one of them was eager to show their newly acquired management skills! So, they all wanted to talk to Lexie and get the story first hand. She was sick to death of it before very long. The guy was fired.

Then another night one employee threatened another employee. Right in front of Lexie! Here we go again, and sure enough the entire management team had to talk to her one at a time. She was irritated. She said “I work in the game room! I’m secluded in a little room in the back! Why do they come in there and do stupid crap!” Luckily, she’s not afraid to say what she sees, even to the corporate big cheese. The Big Cheese happens to be our next door neighbor, so she has a familiar face which helps in these crazy situations.

Even so, Lexie is applying at a new pizza place that is opening a lot closer to our house, it’s called “The Big Cheese”. She’d rather drive 3 miles to work instead of 10. Apparently she’s figuring out gas isn’t cheap when you need plenty of it. And with her pizza experience she has a good chance of getting in there she thinks.

She is still loving her car! She is getting better at parking. It’s so nice that I can just send her on errands, or say goodbye to her when she is ready for school, and she can go do her own thing instead of having me haul her around. She's picked up a friend and gone to the beach a couple of times too. I’m loving it! I do worry though, of course. I make her call me a lot, just because I need to know she didn’t get creamed by some red light runner. One day I saw a car just like hers had been in a 3 car accident, that white car was the one squished in the middle. I had to pull over and catch my breath and look at the accident and make sure it wasn’t her. Then I called her. She was fine, but the mom warning bells were going off just because I saw the aftermath of that accident.

We still have to get her some California license plates! I keep putting off spending hours at the DMV. Blech! I’d better go do it next week.

Katie is planning her wedding for June. Less than a week after Lexie’s graduation. She bought her dress and we are venue hunting. We also need to make and mail invitations, book motel rooms, register for gifts, get her packed up to move out, and her list of things to do is endless. In fact, I don’t even know what all we need to do. Good thing she has a little wedding planner booklet that has a list. I know we need to find an officiate.

Her little hubby-to-be is in the Navy and stationed in South Carolina. While she’s wedding planning, he’s doing his Navy thing and lining up housing for them after the wedding. He only gets ten days off to fly across the country, walk down the aisle, fly back. It’ll be a whirlwind wedding for him!

She is still going to college (on occasion) and working as a bridal consultant at David’s Bridal. She’s hoping to get transferred to the store near where she will be living once she is an old married woman.

In her spare time, she listens to me nag at her to clean her room. I gotta do my mom thing while I still can. She’s also spending time with the littles lately. I think she’s realizing that moving away means exactly that, moving away. Leaving the littles will be hard for her.

Adding one more to the family!

We're going to finally get a boy! A Son-In-Law! Our oldest daughter, Katie is engaged!

Last weekend was Andrew's boot camp graduation in Chicago. Katie flew to Illinois with Andrew's parents and his sister. They met up with Andrew's grandparents who flew up from Tennessee. They all went to the Navy boot camp graduation on Friday, then Saturday the guys wanted some "Man Time" and they went out to breakfast.

Ha! They were sneaking off to the jewelry store! After their "man breakfast" they reunited with the ladies and all went to do some sight seeing. They went to the Sears Tower but the ladies all started to act funny and said they were afraid of heights so they wanted to stay on the lower level and check out the gift shops, Andrew's dad and grandpa weren't interested in going to the top either. Katie and Andrew went up to the top by themselves.

At the top of Sears Tower, Andrew got down on one knee and asked Katie to marry him. Right there in front of a bunch of tourists! He put the ring on her finger and she said "Yes!".

So, that's it! We're getting that son we've never had! We look forward to officially calling him a family member. Here are some pics from Katie's camera from her Chicago weekend. And here is one of the happy couple and a pic of her ring (which is at the jeweler right now being resized, so you get a stock photo)

Happy 20th Birthday to Princess Katie!

She's TWENTY years old!!! I can barely believe she's been my little daughter for so long! Ha ha, she's not so little, she's five inches taller than me.

Here is my first born in pictures:

A few hours old:


Her first birthday after she puked on her birthday cake and was put in the hospital for an IV because she dehydrated from a stomach flu:


Her second birthday, and no, she wasn't drinking beer... that's Daddy's and he put it down for a second while he took the picture! Looks funny!



Age 3, winning first runner up in the Miss Walmart Pagent at the local mall



Age 6, she cut her own hair and had very few teeth



Age 13 and on the 8th grade volleyball team



Age 14 with her first Driver's License!


Graduating from high school at age 18



And here she is now, age 20! (well, this picture is *almost* age 20 since it was taken a month or so ago) This is her best friend on her 20th birthday.

Shakin' at Shakey's!

No, I didn't forget about my blog. I've just been busy. 2009 is already whipping right along!

Yesterday was my little brother's 30th birthday! Happy Birthday, Little Bro. He doesn't know I have a blog, so he'll never read that, but I hope he had a good one.

The mom-taxi is now a full time job. Soon to become full time plus overtime. I have to drive Lexie to school. Pick her up. Drive her to work. Pick her up. All while dragging the littles along. You know how when you are getting ready to go somewhere with two littles someone has to poop their diaper? Imagine that four times a day! Welcome to my world.

College starts soon. The 20th. I'm taking three classes: Sacred Texts, History of Literary Commentary & Theory II, and the third class is still up in the air right now. I need an upper level DD general ed course, which I've already taken and aced. Sigh. The joys of transferring from 4 previous colleges in 3 other states plus California. I tried to get into an online course, but it filled within the first hour that registration opened and I missed out. So, I signed up for two other courses as possible substitutes for the online course, and I will decide which works best in my schedule. So far, I've decided neither works best. I filled out a waitlist form and I emailed the professor of the online course. I'm getting nowhere fast. In the meantime, I have to choose between the two classes that I am registered in and drop one.

My schedule stinks. I have one literature class at 10am - 11:45am and the other literature class from 5:30pm - 8:45pm. Nothing like spreading it out over one long day! Add the hour long commute, and it's a long day. I'm thinking of going twice, head to campus in the morning, attend my class or classes if I can't get in the online course, and then head home. Pick up the kids from their sitters, drop them at home. Then head back to campus. I'm not sure how else to do it. Two trips to San Marcos in one day?

Somehow I'm going to have to juggle my class schedule with my taxi schedule. Hmmmm...

I'm having babysitter issues. This just makes college much more fun! The sitter I have been taking Gracie to, where she recently got a snazzy new haircut, is so upset over the haircut incident that she might not watch Gracie anymore. I can't get ahold of her and she isn't returning my calls. Great. Now I need part-time temporary daycare for my not-potty-trained yet 2 yr old. I dare ya to find that!

For the baby, I arranged for her to go to my daughter's friend. This sitter just had a baby this week and she's 17 yrs old. But, she doesn't work, doesn't go to school, she's available! And she has all the baby stuff: Swing, bouncy seat, high chair, exersaucer, changing table, pack n play, etc. She's available and she's all set up. And she said she'd do it. Again, with the part time temporary stuff, add the word infant and no daycare will come near me. But, now that this girl has her own baby, she is feeling a little overwhelmed and not so sure about watching one more. Ay ay ay.

Neither sitter wants to watch both. I know, it's kinda crazy, but that's fine. Crazy I can deal with. But, lack of babysitters is something that is going to send me over the edge! Anyone out there need a nanny job? It's part-time and temporary! But they are soooooooo cute!

We had a 5.0 earthquake the other day, later downgraded to a 4.5. Not sure how an earthquake gets "downgraded" but there you have it. Even the earthquakes are suffering in this economy. There was a big jolt and then a shake and rumble. I got scared! I was holding Libby, so I leaned over her so nothing would fall on her; nothing fell, but that's what I did. The whole house shook and I looked up and swore it was swaying. Keith was teaching and he said he spread his arms out wide to keep his balance. He was only 5 miles from the epicenter and our house is 40 miles away. Katie said she didn't feel it. Lexie felt it! She was at work at Shakey's Pizza and just got her ten minute break, so she grabbed a soda and sat down and that's when it hit. Right when she sat, so she wasn't sure at first if she was just so tired from working that it felt like an earthquake or if she really felt one. She said people didn't seem to react. So she looked around and the hanging lights were swaying. Lexie said "We were shakin' at Shakey's!"

Not to be overlooked, my oldest is nursing a broken heart. Well, not really broken... what do you call it? Disconnected. Her boyfriend left on Monday for boot camp. Eight weeks of no cell phone, myspace, email, texts, or old fashioned getting together at Starbucks. She misses him terribly. It really hit me, look at this generation of kids. They are in constant connection with their peers. Constant! The girls sleep with their phones!

Boot camping boyfriend gave Katie a promise ring before he left. They are engaged to be engaged! Committed without the official commitment. Promised. Awwww, sweet!

Baby is teething, toddler is bouncing off the walls 24/7, teen #1 is a puddle of tears, teen #2 is busy doing a lot of nothing and yet... off she goes. And she needs a ride.

That's the down and dirty update, come back in a few hours and I'll finish the post when I don't have two kids and a doll in my lap!

I finished my post! Took me 2 full days! You can read it now...

Meeting the Parents

What's the easiest way to do dinner for 7 (and a half) people? Eat out! Oh, but it wasn't so simple. We went out for the most complicated dinner ever.

The purpose of eating out was to meet Andrew's parents. Andrew is the boyfriend of our oldest daughter. Katie and Andrew really wanted us all to meet and have dinner together. They've been dating for more than a year and he is headed off to Navy Boot Camp in a week.

Getting all of us parents together was a complicated mess. His parents work and his dad is often out of town on business. I'm sure they have their personal obligations also. My husband works, and has an evening job too. Otherwise we don't really have a lot of things going on, except holiday parties and things like that lately.

For the past month, Katie and Andrew have been trying to find an evening that would work for them (they work too!), his parents and us. Finally, found one! Last Sunday. Lexie could stay home with Gracie and we'd take Libby along. She's portable. No problem...

Then we all got sick with a terrible cold. And Katie and Andrew both got called in to their jobs to work that day, so that didn't work at all. Which brings us to last night, ok, sounds fine.

But, Lexie had to work. Well, if Lexie works that means I don't have a babysitter for Gracie. I called two girls, neither one could sit for Gracie. Lexie working also brings up another problem: getting her home. She has a driver's license but doesn't have a car. So, I am her taxi. Her shift was 4 - 9, which means she starts at 4 and ends sometime between 4 & 9.

So if I find a sitter for Gracie and we go out to dinner, she'll call and need a ride home and I'll have to leave the restaurant, go pick up Lexie, drive her home (20 mins if there is no traffic), drive back to the restaurant (another 20 mins at least). Wouldn't that be polite to sit down to dinner, order a meal and then leave for nearly an hour? And pay a sitter for that?

I decided since I couldn't be at the restaurant, driving the mom-taxi and staying home with Gracie all at the same time - forget it! This is just too complicated!

I told Katie the bad news, we can't go. Lets try lunch tomorrow or something else. Poor kid acted like the sun would never come out again. She was so upset! Hmmm.... apparently this dinner is awfully important. After all, she said it was more important than anything ever. Ok, then. I'll continue to work on organizing things so that we can go.

Off to work she went. Upset and on the verge of tears cuz once again I am ruining her life. Sigh. Now I have one kid upset, one needs a ride, one too loud, and one needing to nurse - in public or not. Deep sigh.

ok... lemme think. If Gracie comes with us, she'll be loud and bored and fidget and distracting and cute. Well, cute works. She can just come with us and that solves that problem. The whole world is her playground, I'm sure she'll have fun driving us all nuts.

Now, how to get Lexie home from work. Wait a minute... who says she has to go home? She can just call us when she gets done working, and one of us will leave the dinner table, pick her up and bring her back to the restaurant turning a 45 - 60 min absence into a 15 min absence. She can sit in the restaurant wearing her Shakeys Pizza uniform, that's ok with me. Not ideal, but it'll have to do.

I'll bring a bottle for Libby. Lets hope she takes it.

My husband then had an idea. Lets cash in a favor with the neighbors. They owe us since we babysit their dog a lot, most recently, he was in our house for 9 hours being a big baby. So I called them and asked if they could watch Gracie while went out to dinner. Well, they were going out of town to pick up their son who lives with them every other weekend. Darn. Then they decided they could leave their 18 yr old daughter home and she could watch Gracie. Yippee! Its good to have your neighbors owe you favors!

Now, we have things arranged as best we can, let's go do this dinner! I'd been working on arranging the evening all day long! (not to mention trying to figure it out the day before too). Now it was 3:00 and time to get ready to leave to take Lexie to work, I have to leave by 3:30 to get her there on time at 4. We made it, I got everyone fed, diapered, and nagged at and out the door we went at 3:30. After I got Lexie to work, I decided to drop by Katie's work and tell her everything is arranged and we're good to go. Because she was still all upset that we couldn't go.

Wow, she was busy at work! She is a bridal consultant and she was working with brides. Apparently, it's been very busy since a lot of grooms proposed to their brides on Christmas Day. And the Valentines Day Brides are getting anxious too. Katie was super happy to hear that I got things organized for dinner.

She said meet up at On The Border at 6:30. Yikes, that's in 2 hrs! I still needed a shower and find something to wear, yikes!

Thank goodness for the baby swing. I got so much done with Libby napping in her swing. I managed to get a shower and find something to squeeze my post-holiday flub into. It wasn't easy, but I managed to get everything sucked in, tucked in and zipped up. Whew!

Now that it was 6:30.... how about if we meet up with everyone at 7? Lexie called. She's done with work. It's 6:30! Well, that works I guess, we'll pick her up and go eat. She doesn't like the idea of going anywhere in her work clothes with her hair up, you know, her world revolves around her hair. She had a shirt in her purse and I grabbed some shoes for her so she wouldn't have to go in her ugly work shoes.

We finally get there, with Katie and Lexie and Libby and Gracie is next door... whew! We got out the door! It took me 10 hours to get out the door for dinner! I tell ya, that food better be good tonight! We arrive at OTB and guess what. The place is dark and the parking spaces out front are empty. It's closed. Out of Business. El Fin.

Another change of plans. We'll go to Johnny Carinos.

Finally! We're there! We're out to dinner! We met Andrew's parents! Woo hooo! Mission Accomplished! Everyone sat around one table and had a nice meal together (except Gracie and their 19 yr old daughter). We ate, we had nice conversation about nothing in particular, Libby charmed everyone (and refused to drink from her bottle), and then everyone turned down desert because we were all too full. That was it.

All that preparation and worry and juggling of everyone's schedules. The kids are happy that we finally all met each other, I guess that is what was so important. You'd think going out to dinner would be easy. Not one bit. It only sounds simple.

The Jimmy Box

We've unearthed it. The Jimmy Box.

We are "moving" without actually going anywhere. We have 4 bedrooms and a "bonus" room, which is a finished garage stall. We have always called that "the 3rd stall".

The 3rd stall has always been the teen hangout room. We filled it with computers, guitars, tv, playstation, movies, friends, neighbors etc. Once Katie got a laptop, she abandoned the 3rd stall and moved her guitar and herself up to her room leaving Lexie to take over. For the past year, the 3rd stall has been Lexie's lair. Well, Lexie has been bumped and my husband moved in. We gutted the room, washed the walls, shampooed the carpet (more than once) and he turned it into "The Man Room". A place for testosterone to linger in the air. He's so happy!

Hubby had an "office" which was really just a place for his crap and his computers and games, etc. It was a mess. He decided to move out of his office and into the family room. Boom, another mess of papers and computer stuff, and speakers and beer bottles. He is now moved out of the family room corner and the office and into his "Man Room". As soon as school starts up again, most of his papers and things will reproduce into unmanageable piles but I'm not too concerned with that, as he has his very own space and its out of sight.

The "office" is now Katie's bedroom. We cleared it out, washed walls and carpet, cleaned out the closet, and all that jazz. The room is now a nice bedroom. Her dear daddy bought her a huge dresser with mirror and a nightstand, and moved her Queen bed down there and gave her a tv too. All that furniture makes it a tight squeeze, but I figured that might be best since she'll have less room to toss her clothes on the floor. Less floor space = less mess? We'll see. She's very happy to be on the main floor. It's like moving away from the family a wee bit.

So, now we are gutting out Katie's ex-bedroom, which will become the bedroom for the younger set of princesses. Lordy the mess!!! That child had more crap tucked away in corners and underneath and behind and la la la. And the dust! Holy blanket of dust! I've got it empty now, just need to vacuum up the next layer of dust, paint the walls pink and shampoo the carpet. Cleaning out the teen bedroom was an adventure.

Getting under the layers of clothes, books, trinkets, blankets, old shoes, kitchen spoons and mystery items.... we found it. The Jimmy Box.


Jimmy was Katie's boyfriend for her last two years of high school. It was one of those cute little high school romances that rode its own roller coaster of happiness and sorrow. Toward the end, happiness was really a one-sided feeling. Jimmy was so happy and Katie was just annoyed. He usually looked like the happiest little boy on Christmas morning, and she usually looked like she'd love an excuse to run, Fast. Finally, it ended. And the Jimmy Box went to the back of the closet where it was soon buried.

The Jimmy Box is a wooden cabinet that Jimmy built for Katie. I remember when he gave it to her, his handicraft, work from his own hands, his pride made of wood. She smiled politely. She said Thanks. She wondered what the hell it was and what she'd do with it. He was grinning from ear to ear. She filled it with Jimmy souvenirs. Photos, movie ticket stubs, his hat, a drum key, that sort of thing.

And now we have unearthed the Jimmy Box. Katie said "oh yeah, my Jimmy Box. Lets just dump it in the trash". She had that same annoyed look on her face. It's a nice cabinet. Not sure what we'll do with it after we dump out the Jimmy stuff. Anyone out there in the market for a Jimmy box?

A Hollister Holiday Story

My oldest princess has a part time job at the local mall, working at Hollister. She thinks she is so cool! Well, she did . Until she realized that the job isn't all that she thought it would be. Glamor and popularity and excessive coolness aside.... it's just not her dream job after all.

Katie was working one of her 4 hr shifts recently during the Christmas shopping rush.... and this is how her story goes:

She had been working for over 2 hours and she was feeling thirsty but it wasn't her break time yet. The store was packed with people, mostly crabby moms. (Boy, I can relate to that, two seconds in that store and I'm a crab and a half!) Katie was working in Betty's One - that means the first room of girls clothing.

One mom came up to her and was asking her something about a shirt. She needed the same shirt in a different size or something like that. Katie said that the lady just kept talking and talking and talking. Katie couldn't understand her. My poor little princess said that the lady was in her face just talking and nothing made sense to Katie - she was speaking English though. Katie said "I was just staring at her for the longest time and I couldn't understand or say anything - I just stared at her".

Oh my. Can you imagine what this poor frustrated mom was thinking at this point?

Katie's story continues.... The lady was talking and talking about the shirt, waving the shirt around, and then she went blurry. That's all Katie remembers. Then she woke up on the floor with a crowd hovering over her and her manager saying "KATIE KATIE KATIE KATIE!" She had herself a nice little seizure just then.

They got her up and moved her to the back room and let her lay on a boxes of sweatshirts, got her some water and asked her if she was ok. Well, she doesn't like to worry people, so she said she was just fine and she just needed to lay there a few minutes. So, that's what she did. Drank the water and rested for a while.

By this time she had an hour left of her shift and she was still feeling kinda goofy. Her manager said she could sit in the chair in the Betty's One room and drink her water for the rest of her shift, so that's what she did. Nice guy, huh? Did he call an ambulance? No. Did he hide her in the back room where she couldn't get any help if she needed it? Yes. Jerk. He better stay far far away from me, cuz I have nothing nice to say to the guy. You'd think he'd want to cover his ass for liability anyway. She said she folded a few pairs of jeans that were next to the chair so that she earned her hour of minimum wage.

Yes, minimum wage. The kid has worked there for a year and they don't give raises.

Then, she drove home. I know! Crazy kid!!! When she got home she was so pale and she looked exhausted. I knew as soon as I saw her that something was really wrong. Gave her some OJ and she told me how the lady was talking to her, she fainted, had a seizure and finished her shift and drove home. I made her promise me to call me for a ride or get a ride home from someone if ever this happens again. Yeah Yeah, she says. So I told her you could hurt someone else - maybe a family with little children. Oh! Well, ok. She promised then. She doesn't want to hurt someone else by accident. I also told her she didn't need to finish that shift, but she said she still needed to sit for a while so it was ok.

Oh my goodness.

Can you just imagine this mom trying to communicate with my Katie, who is staring off into space and non-responsive and then she just drops like a rock to the floor? That poor woman. Sounds like she was already having a difficult shopping day and then Katie faints at her feet.

My little princess has low blood pressure and has a history of occasional fainting followed by a seizure. It hasn't happened in quite a while so I figured she had grown out of it. I guess not. Sugar brings her around again as does fluids. I've taken her to see several docs and nobody could ever come up with anything wrong. They all say "it was probably a one time fluke". This one-time-fluke happens a couple times a year though. She's been having mild seizures since age 6 or 7, fainting since age 10 and that's when the convulsive seizures began too. In her younger years a seizure just looked like she had zoned out. We thought she was a daydreamer. She can feel it coming but was ignoring the signs since she was working and knew she had a break coming up she could get something sugary to drink then. But, she didn't make it till break time.

I think she was reminded of the urgent need to listen to her body when its talking to her. Poor girl. I cannot believe she didn't smack her head when she fell in that cluttered store. Have you ever been in there? I hate that store - I come out with shin bruises from their racks and a massive headache from the music, not to mention the poisonous toxic thick perfume in the air. I don't know how my daughter can stand to go in there and spend 4 hours. Blech!

She's looking for a better job - I wish she'd look harder.