Date Night

Last night Ray and I (alone) went out to dinner at Chili's and then to see the Underworld. It was great night even though I kept bringing up the kids lol. We haven't been out like this in years, so it was well deserved. We left the kids with my mom, and they went to dinner at hometown buffet with my aunt and cousin, and had a great time. It was a great dinner, and I even got a cape cod with our appetizer. I had a huge steak with loaded mashed potatoes and broccoli, and just talking about it is making me hungry all over again. The movie was awesome and makes me want to sit here all day and watch the previous underworld movies.

I'm on a mission today to finish some dresses and start on Ollie's summer wardrobe. I know for sure that I will get the dresses done, and the matching hair bows but the summer clothes are a work in progress.

Kaiser Day

So yesterday I kept the boys home from school, they sounded horrible! I feel so much better and so does Ollie, but my poor boys. So since we were fit ins we had to sit around and wait for them to fit us in. We were there from 11:30 in the morning till 4:30 in the afternoon, and I think it's fair to say that I hope I don't see the inside of Kaiser for a while.

Turns out Raymond has a bad ear infection, a lot of chest congestion and his horrible rattling cough. He got antibiotics for his ear, and some claritin to loosen his chest. Bobby is fine she said, other than his asthma acting up. But he got a refill for his inhalers for home, another face mask, and a spare inhaler to keep at school.

The best part about waiting all day to see a Dr is when they criticize you and make you feel like a bad parent, yeah that's the best. She basically told me that I have never taken Raymond for a physical since we've had Kaiser (we got it in 2006), and that I was wrong for that. As nice I could, I told her that I had every year since 2006 and even before. Of course she had to try to prove me wrong, because she looked over his records in her office, so she turns the computer screen to me to show me and finds the appointments for his physicals. But yeah, where is his appointment for 2009? Then I'm bad for not bringing him in more than his physicals, because the medication he's on needs to be monitered for weight loss. Again, I politely told her that his psychiatrist weighs him every time she dispenses him his medication for that very reason. So then her attention goes to Bobby. Bobby is missing his physical for school. Um, no I brought him for his physical a month or two before September. And he's missing shots. Okay that part I admit to, because well I don't feel he needs all of them at once. So yeah I refuse to let them poke him more than once at each appointment which has set him back but he still gets his shots, and he's only missing 1. Then we go to Olivia who's not even seeing her today (er yesterday). Why isn't Olivia up to date with her shots? Because I choose not to, my choice as her parent. She doesn't need a shot for chicken pox, I had chicken pox and I'm fine. I choose which shots I want her to have, and as a parent it's my right. But yeah I'm a bad mom.

Needless to say, I'm switching them Dr's!

Ugh

The last few days I've been sitting. And laying, and rolling, and tossing. What I'm trying to say is that I'm sick, and I haven't had a good nights sleep in days! I caught a nasty cold from Ollie, and neither of us can breathe through the night which is not good. She's been waking up almost every hour during the night, so I comfort her for about 20 minutes until she falls back asleep. I crawl into bed and toss and turn for another 20 minutes before falling asleep, which leaves me a grand total of 20 minutes to sleep before she wakes up again.

I really hope I get over this fast, because I have so much to do and I have no energy or time (between wiping mine and Ollie's noses) to do what I have to do.

It's all a matter of time

I just got the call I've been waiting for! My sister is officially in labor, and is 5 cm dialated! I'm over the moon and through the roof right now. It's truly not funny how excited I am. It's really only a matter of time before Baby D makes his grand entrance into this world. I can't wait to go visit him and hold him, this is all too exciting. I will update this throughout the night, I know I won't sleep until he's here :)

Girls night out

Friday night I had a girls night out with some mommy's I met online. I know how horrible that sounds, but I swear there was no danger. I had that reminded to me by my sons nino. Apparently Raymond told them that we went to met mommy's online friend (it was a mommy and her little girl at a crowded mall), and he didn't specify that we had met another female. So yeah, it looked really fishy lol. Anyways, it was a mommy meet up only and I had a blast!

I can't lie and say I wasn't nervous, because I was. I'm not the social butterfly I used to be, and well, meeting new people hasn't happened in a long time. These ladies were so friendly though that it was like I've known them forever. I was the oldest one there, but wasn't followed to far by a 24 year old. We had a few drinks, and smoked some hookah (flavored tobacco). It was my first time smoking hookah, and I felt out of the loop and old for not knowing what it was lol. Oh, and you know the old lady (ME) was the first to go home too. I was super cold and don't tolerate it well, so I had to go home and warm up.

I still had a great time and met new friends, which made it all worth it. And one of the girls made the most amazing mini cheesecakes, so I had 2! I'm glad I grabbed some stuff to make dip with too, because that was all gone by the end of the night as well. I had the best friday night I've had in a long while and I hope we get together soon. Thanks for that ladies!

I've been lagging, I know it and I feel awful. Okay maybe not that bad, but I feel bad enough lol. I'm not full of excuses, nothing like that to explain my few days away from the blog... except that life happened. There's the 3 kids, the sewing, the pets, the hubby, and the life.

I've been busy working on some things for Baby D (the nephew), which you can read about my craftiness on my other blog http://sewcrafty.today.com/ , and a Vday dress for Ollie (also on the crafty blog). I still have 2 more Vday dresses to go, for Alanna and Makayla (the nieces). And I had an orientation at the school, did I mention that? Yeah, I'm going back to school. I'm a huge combination of excited and nervous. Then there's the weather! It's been so nice out (almost summer like), that I couldn't help but spend tons of time outside with the kids. Oh, and since that stupid CPSIA new law is putting my kids clothing making out of business I decided to start making diaper bags.

Enough of the blah blah blah, and the excuses I said I wouldn't give. Here's some pictures of Ollie enjoying the warm weather and our newly grown grass.

Better Tomorrow

So last night as I was randomly reading blogs, I decided that yes, I will have a new years resolution! I haven't ever had one, and I'm not getting any younger here so what the hey. But I didn't want some lame resolution like I'm going to stop eating potatoe chips, I wanted something really meaningful to live up to. I thought long and hard about it. I like who I am and how I am, but I don't think I'm being the best person I can be. Voila! I'm resoluting to being a better person.

How am I going to do this you ask? Well, first I had to decide what do "good" people do. My idea of a good person, thinks about their family, the environment, and others. Now since this is my first resolution I didn't want to set myself up for failure, so I'm starting out slowly here. To meet the family part, I'm striving to make all the gifts (birthdays and what not) that we give this year. On top of that, I'm going to try to make all of the kids clothes, and going to attempt to make the boys' school uniforms come September. Doing that also fulfills my environmental conscious part too! By not buying more stuff to give cuts down on packaging waste, and greenhouse gases that would have been used to make the stuff I would have gave. I also plan on making my own resusable market bags, yay I'm going more green. Now the thinking of others part.

This part of the new me gets it's own paragraph because it's that touching. I came across a website a while back, in my search for free patterns to make. Here it is now http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/patterns.html, sounds like a commercial huh? Anyways, there's a section on that site that has free patterns to make for preemies. Not just surviving preemies, but also for those that go home to Heaven. There's links to other websites that have more patterns, which have more links and organizations to donate these things to. This really touched my heart. I consider myself to be very blessed to have my 3 healthy children that I get to watch grow and learn everyday. So I plan on printing some of these patterns and making a few of these items every month. I'm not going to set a limit on how many I'm going to make every month but I will manage a few. I'm not sure where I'll donate to yet, but I'll post a link when I find a place, and I'll also post my progress.

So yeah, my mantra this year is 2009 is my year to shine! I'm going to be a better person, to be the best me I can be.

La Brea tarpits and page museum

Yup, that's where I took 4 kids by myself yesterday, to the La Brea tarpits and Page museum. It was freezing (for us in CA anyway), so we ate our packed lunch in the car. Lunch alone was nice, we cranked up the music and heater, and the kids happily scarfed down their lunchables. Ollie squeezed her capri sun all over herself, so that required a change of shirt before we could head off. Me being the dufus I am, I parked in the wrong parking structure which put us in the middle of the clock at the art museum. So we practically ran to the other end of the block (where our museum was), in the cold, with 1 kid in a stroller and 3 kids trailing all around me.

I haven't been to that museum since I was a kid, so I didn't really remember it. I wish I had though, cause it was SMALL. It wasn't enough to fill our day with, so we only stayed about 2 hours. That or I should have thought about a back up plan. It was educational though, and my kids made me beam with pride when they answered the docents questions on our guided tour. Oh yeah, we took the guided tour of the tar pits when we were done with the museum. We only got halfway through the tour though, because Izzy isn't like my kids and found herself bored. She got really loud with her bird noises and was trying to distract the boys from listening, and it was cold out anyways, so I decided we'd head home. I don't have the best of pictures from yesterday though, because almost as soon as we got there my batteries started dying and I forgot to bring more.

The boys loved playing in the tar! They had theses poles that were in tar that you can try to lift them up, and they were varying sizes. The skinny poles were so easy to lift out of the tar, but man those wide ones were a problem. The docent later told us it was easier for animals with skinny legs like deer to get out of the tar than animals with wider legs like the mammoths.

My last point of interest was the dire wolfs. The docent said that at the Page museum they had over 4,000 dire wolf fossils and it's still growing everyday. After that she also said how the Page museum has the biggest collection of fossils in the world. That's pretty neat! So here's a collection of dire wolf skulls that they had on the wall, it's crazy to see how many there are.

Oh, at the museum they had these cool animatronic things, I was so proud that Ollie wasn't scared of them. The mammoth moved his trunk and made noises. The sabertooth and bear(?) moved their paws and mouths and made noises. They were pretty neat to watch. All in all it was a victory. I left with 4 kids and came back with 4 kids. Because I don't have an okay from Izzy's mom to be posting pictures of her, here's my 3 that made it back safe and sound.

Most of them slept the whole way home, except Raymond. He's my co-pilot on our little excursions and likes to read the mapquest directions to me. I really don't know what I'd do without mapquest, honestly I have no sense of direction.