The Many Santas We've Seen!

The Daily Damage and other doo-dads

The Daily Damage of attending college, not counting tuition or books or overdue library fines, just attending is something I wish I didn't figure out. I shouldn't have done the math. But since I did, here's the breakdown: Jess, hold onto your hat, maybe you should sit down, this is more than you spend in a month to restock your entire house...

$35 for Gracie's child care
$35 for Libby's child care
$10 approximate cost of gas for the 45 mile trip to school and back
$10 for the second trip on Tuesdays because I go back and forth twice that day
$7 to park in an itty bitty space half a mile from my classroom
$5 for lunch. If I had time and another hand, I would pack my own. I try to.

This adds up to $90 - $100 just for me to show up at college! And I am getting a great deal on child care. My sitters are doing us huge favors by charging us so little!

And other tidbits, updates, and random thoughts:
College sucks. I have more classes than I have time for. The homework is impossible when I have a toddler who wants to color in my book too! And I can't write papers when I am constantly watching the kids with one eye and type a bit with only half (or less) on the laptop. Sure, I can type out random thoughts in my blog, but here I can also let my spelling and grammar slide and if it doesn't make sense, ah, that's fine too.

I won a Target gift card by commenting on Duck Duck Cow's blog. She was celebrating her blog's birthday. Thanks, Jessica! I think that's pretty nice that she remembers and celebrates her blog's birthday, shoot, I barely celebrated my oldest child's birthday! In fact all I did was say "Happy Birthday" and handed her some cash. Then she went to Disneyland with her best friend. I did bake some butterfly shaped cupcakes. I have a lot to learn about decorating though.



We're having problems with Monsters. Those darn ugly monsters are scaring Gracie at night! Daddy has been calling the Monsters on his phone and telling them they cannot come over. Then he talks to them for a bit asks them if they took a bath and combed their fur because they are so cute when they are clean and fluffy. Asks them if they like to play ball. He's so funny! But it is really helping with Gracie's fear on Monsters. She says "Sponsters" cuz she is cute like that!

My sister wrote in her blog about how she didn't have her camera when she needed it. Boy, I know how that goes! Libby has been toying with me. She learned how to roll over but every time I try to catch her act with my camera, she won't do it. As soon as I put it away, over she goes! Arg! Here she is teasing me:



It is sure a good thing you folks only visit with me online. Really! Days like today I am thankful that I'm a hermit and don't get out much socially. You see, yesterday I couldn't decide if I wanted chili or bean and ham soup. I had both. Today we went out for Mexican. Let's just leave it at that.

Katie's boyfriend is almost done with boot camp! She's flying to Illinois to see him graduate next week! According to her it was a long wait for the end of boot camp, but I think it feels like he just left not that long ago. Perspectives.... interesting. He is doing really well and he earned two phone calls so far, one he used to call his parents (only after failing to get ahold of Katie), and the other phone call he got to call Katie. They've been writing letters back and forth and his are full of news about how he's doing well. He did some strength training and running before he went and that really served him well.

Katie has been super busy lately and her creative juices are flowing like a raging river. In the last 15 days, she wrote and recorded 10 songs. She even got her dad going on this songwriting and recording stuff. You can listen to her songs here.

Speaking of the hubby, he survived another round of budget cuts. 20% of the teachers in his district got "pink slips" and we sure thought he would be one of them. But, he managed to stay clear of it this time. That's twice this year that we've feared job loss and he is under contract and has tenure. Plus he was the district Teacher of the Year a couple of years ago. Nobody has job security. If he does lose his job, I guess we'll have to move in with my mother. I wonder if she realizes that she is our backup plan. Hey Mom, got room for a family of 6 and a dog? It's ok, Mom, you're safe for now.

Things are good for the girls with their jobs. They both got promoted. Katie went full time at David's Bridle and got a raise and Lexie is now the shift leader in the game room at Shakey's Pizza. No raise for her, but a little more responsibility and a leadership role. Can never go wrong being declared a leader! Well, ok, that might not be true, Custer didn't do so well as a leader...

Whats a good update without mentioning the dog? She's always got something exciting going on! Last week she chased a bunny rabbit! This week she found that one section of our wooden plank fence is falling apart. She's been nosing her way through the fence and getting out. Freeeeeeedom! Roaming the neighborhood unleashed and free spirited! Till the neighbors catch her and go around knocking on doors dragging her along saying "Is this your dog?". I drug a pallet over and leaned it on the fence over the loose section. That didn't work. I came home from running errands and saw my dumb dog (is she really?) a block away from our house! So, I pulled over and hit the remote sliding door - by the way, my van is so cool! - and she hopped in. Gave her a ride the rest of the way home. I moved our other pallet over to hide another section of fence.

Oh, and when I got home with the two littles, diaper bags, purse, groceries, and the dog... there was the letter carrier. I took the opportunity to talk to her about my annoying neighbor lady who wants our mailboxes moved a block away. And I told the carrier that I'm fine with my mail service just the way it is, I don't want it moved a block away because as you can see, my hands are full and if I have to go a block away to get my mail, I'll be inconvenienced. Why should I just because that one lady wants me to? The carrier said they are so tired of that lady at the post office, she comes in to complain all the time! They have a plan for her mail delivery that won't involve any of the rest of the people in our mailbox cluster. Yippee!

I have a lot of homework to do this weekend, the house is a mess because I've been doing homework instead of vacuuming and dishes and that sort of thing. Keith has to fix our fence! And the girls are probably working or doing who knows what. I think that's all the updating I have for now.

One more picture just for fun:

If A Photo Is Worth 1,000 Words.....

I uploaded 1,097 photos of our weekend at my Gramma's 100th Birthday Party! It took me a while, but I finally got it done. They are up and online. Yippee!

The photos are from 5 cameras. I had to sort and discard quit a few. Lots of duplicates and some fuzzy pictures. Probably from all the laughing. I didn't spend the whole weekend with a camera fused to my face. My mother did though.

I didn't add a link to the photos to our family website yet. We had an update from our host server which required a new password, darned if I know what it is. And I use a combination of Front Page and Picassa to update our site, which is just too complicated for my preggo brain right now. So, I used Picassa Web Albums and made 15 folders of photos sorted by event - Ta Da!!! It's done!

Now, I just need to catch up on scanning the baby's last photo shoot pictures - yay, more 3D ultrasound images!!!

I'm so behind on all this picture stuff. Having too much fun to spend sitting at the scanner.

In other news..... I went swimming yesterday. Ahhhhh, felt so wonderful!!! But when I got out, ugh, 20 pound belly felt so heavy!

Sleeping Babies

I was reminded by Burnt Cookies when I went over to her blog today about another blog that I really enjoyed and forgot to put on my blogroll: Who Says 8 is Enough (a mom of nine - think she ever gets any sleep?) and she has on her blog a great post about sleeping babies. I had to join in!

I am surprised that I have so few pictures of my oldest two sleeping. The oldest princess was good at sleeping, she mastered the art at a young age. The second princess didn't sleep much those first two years, she sure did a lot of screaming and crying though. I did find one sleeping picture of her as a tot. ONE. Princess Gracie sleeps pretty good once she's down and out. Getting her there is a challenge. She's a great mix of her sisters.

The pics I found were so cute that I couldn't narrow it down to just one of each princess. So... you get a few of my slumbering babies in no particular order. Have fun trying to figure out which is which, I have to look at the labels on the photos!

Here are my sleeping babies.... and one sleeping teen for good measure!

Zoo Photos

This is a winery on the way to the Wild Animal Park. I had to take a picture to prove to my sister that it did not burn down. She was very concerned about the vineyard!

This is the duck that was chased by my little princess until the duck decided, Enough! And he bit her. Quack! Quack!
Flamingos. So pretty! Why do they smell like monkey poo? Birds are her favorite, so we didn't even go near the monkeys. Only smelled like we did.
I thought this flower was very pretty! A puff of color!

Big Red MaCaw birds giving each other some love. We spent most of our time in the aviary looking at birds.
Gracie yelled "Quack!" to every bird in the aviary.

The deer got to hear, "Good dog, Sanny" and a nice pat on the back.

Quack!

This morning's thick fog finally lifted so Gracie and I got out today. Yay! We were both getting way too bored at home.

First we went to the college. Elevators freak her out so in my infinite wisdom decided to let her walk the stairs while I be-bop the stroller up or down the stairs - whichever way we were going. Well, that's sure a lot of work!!! I worked up a sweat because every flight of stairs Gracie would go up for a while, then down, then up, then down.... and I only had one hand to manage the stroller on the stairs so I could hold her other hand.

I finally decided she could scream all she wants in the elevator.

We stood in line behind 30 or so people. That was fun! Gracie threw her toy a million times and said UH OH and then someone would pick it up and give it back to her. She'd search out her next victim and do it again. Fun times! I was just glad she found something to do so she quit fussing about waiting in line forever. Tuition paid, mission accomplished!

After we left, we stopped at In-n-Out for a bite. A Double-Double is diet food, right? Gracie had fries and lots of ketchup.

I decided she put up with enough of me that she deserved a trip to the SD Wild Animal Park. It's only about 10 miles from the college and it was still pretty early in the day. So we went there. It was awesome! A weekday in January is a great time to go - we almost had the place to ourselves! We had a blast - saw lots of birds (her favorite) and quacked at ALL of them! Gracie chased a duck till she finally caught it and then it bit her. She really pouted about that. So we went into the petting area and pet the deer. Gracie is more like a sheepdog running and herding them. Back to the aviary.

She slept all the way home. I wanted to! I'll post pictures later. But we had a great time together and we both really needed an outing.

Princess Party!

My oldest princess really is a princess! She was hired to act as Belle from Beauty and the Beast at a birthday party for a 4 yr old girl named Mia. Mia was speachless when she saw that Belle came all the way from Disneyland to be at her birthday party. And she was 100% convinced that Katie was the real Belle! Here are some pictures from the party, Gracie was invited and had a good time too!

The princess costume was an adventure. The party mom asked her to come dressed as any Disney princess. Katie tried on costumes at the costume shop for Snow White and Cinderella and Belle. I've never seen my daughter look so awful in a dress! The costumes just hung on her and she just looked like a girl wearing a cheesy cheap costume. And the wigs weren't very good either; Poor Katie doesn't have the right hair for Snow White or Cinderella. She can't let this little girl down! Mia has an annual pass to Disneyland and she knows what the princesses look like!

So we ran to Walmart to buy fabric since everything else was closed at that hour. By the way, this is the night before the party around 9pm. Luckily, they had a bolt of beautiful golden satin. Whew! Belle will be at the party! We came home and put Baby Princess to bed, Katie ran off with her friends and I was left with a job to do. I laid out the satin on the dining room table, pulled out some patterns for guidance since we didn't have a pattern to work from - I had to piece some old ones together and size it with our best guesses. I worked on it till 1am when Princess Gracie woke up for the first of her night-wakings. (she wakes up 2 or 3 times a night and needs to be fed, snuggled and lulled back to sleep). I went to bed after that. Gracie woke up again at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep till 6am, her next normal waking time. We slept till 7am and then it was back to the piecing together the dress. Between Gracie's demands, and Katie's fussiness about looking perfect, I got the dress done at 12 noon. We grabbed her tiara that she wore to prom last spring, and we were ready! Party in two hours and we had an hour drive to get there!





The neatest thing that happened at the party was Katie's connection with a down's syndrome girl. Jandi does not socialize and prefers to be left alone in her own space, and nobody is allowed to touch her paper and her markers! Nobody until Katie came along dressed as Belle. Not knowing Jandi's personal space issues, Katie was able to interact with Jandi which drew attention from her family. I heard whispers of "Look, she's talking to Belle!" Cameras started coming out. Then a collective gasp from the crowd as Katie took one of her markers and began to color with her. Katie and Jandi drew pictures together and talked together. Tears were being choked back by the grown-ups in the room. Jandi gave Belle a hug and a drawing, Belle gave Jandi a hug back, a drawing and a piece of candy. Katie has a gift with children and her interaction with Jandi was the gift of the day for everyone! Katie was thrilled to pieces after she learned that her interaction with Jandi was a major accomplishment. I'm so proud of her! She has once again been refueled with desire to become a special education teacher. Thank you, Jandi!

Vacation Photo Scrapbook

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