Right now, I find myself eyeball-deep in the travel preparations again. Let me tell you, those three or four days before a trip are ones I usually want to just block out of my memory. I miss the days when we could just throw some clothes in the suitcase and go. Now I have to pack easily four times as much stuff, which really overwhelms me.

It isn’t actually the stuff that overwhelms me. I’ve packed it countless times before and I have lists that I reuse every time. It’s how to pack it. It seems like I’m always changing my method of packing to make it easier to access everything and save space. This time I’m using more boxes and bins. I’m not sure if it will really save space, but I think it will make it easier to get to stuff, and more importantly, to get the stuff back where it’s supposed to go. You know, instead of all over the van floor. We’ll see.

So far, all I have packed is the diapers, pull-ups and wipes and the snacks. I thought I’d have all afternoon today to get the clothes packed, but I suspect ear infections so we’re off to the doctor. Sigh. Both of the kids have been sleeping horribly the last few nights, Kelvin’s been really fussy, and today Ava told me she has owies in her ears. If they do have ear infections, that’s not something I want to travel with, so I want to get them on some antibiotics (and acidophiles of course) as soon as possible. Hopefully they don’t though…we haven’t had any ear infections in over a year!

So I’d better get myself off the computer and get some packing done before we spend the afternoon at the doctor’s office. I’m hoping to have the majority of the packing done by tonight and then tomorrow we’ll just have to get odds and ends together….plus I’m sure Chad will still have to pack his clothes, computer, x-box (I’m sure he’d bring a wii too if we had one), and the rest of his stuff. Should be interesting!

Posted: February 2nd, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

A week or so ago, I wrote about our trip to the Brown v Board of Education Museum. I finally uploaded all the pictures last night, and was a little upset to realize I didn’t get any that really captured the museum. Know what I mean?

This is pretty much the best picture I was able to get:

And yes, Ava did know I was taking her picture…she was just refusing to pose. Kind of going off on a tangent here, but I also realized last night that I don’t have any recent pictures where both kids are looking at the camera with halfway normal faces. Someone is always scowling, looking away, picking their nose, or giving me a cheesy grin. If I can’t even get a decent picture of the kids, how can I ever be expected to find a decent term life insurance rate? Oh well.

There are a few other pictures from the field trip in the kids’ 2010 photobucket (and yes, Sarah, I’m going straight over to put the photobucket link on the sidebar, OK?).

Posted: February 1st, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

A few weeks ago, Chad decided he was going to start cooking dinner one night a week. This may or may not have been prompted by me telling him that I hate cooking dinner when the kids are around (which is every night). LOL

Last week, he made Parmesan Chicken Bundles, Grilled Red Potatoes and Glazed Baby Carrots. It was so good!

The chicken was pounded out really thin and then rolled up with a spinach, mozzarella, parmesan and cream cheese mixture inside, then dipped in egg and rolled in cracker crumbs. With all that cheese, it was probably horribly fattening, but it was so good, we didn’t care!

The potatoes were good too, but the carrots….I’m not really sure what he put in them, but those were the best carrots I’ve ever had in my life!

If he’s not careful, he’s going to have a new job around here…cooking me dinner every night! I would gladly clean the rugs and other things I normally ask him to do if he would make me those carrots every night!

**Click over to see pictures of our new Peanut Shell! I think I’m in love!**

Posted: February 1st, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

This morning was pretty much a nightmare. I had to take the kids with me to get an oil change and I think I would rather look for auto insurance quote every day for the rest of my life than ever do that again!

First of all, I called yesterday to see if they had time to get my car in and they said they didn’t have time yesterday, but definitely did today. I made sure to get there early so that they didn’t have time to get behind yet. But when I got there, they said they wouldn’t even be able to start on it for at least 45 minutes. I thought about just going home and coming back in 45 minutes, but it’s a 15 minute drive each way, so there wasn’t much point in doing that. And I didn’t have any errands to run, so I told them I’d just wait.

Within a few minutes, the kids were already bouncing off the walls. I guess my first mistake was going to the bank before I went to the mechanic, because the kids always get suckers there so they had a bit of a sugar high. I also didn’t think we’d be waiting long at all, so I didn’t bring any books or toys with us.

My biggest mistake was locking the keys on my phone and letting Kelvin play with it to distract him for a few minutes. The little stinker did an emergency call to 911!!! (When the keys are locked, if you press the menu button, there’s an “emergency call” option) I could have died of embarrassment…luckily they didn’t send a police car out or anything, they just called me back to make sure everything was OK. That was definitely a first for me! Oy.

From there, things weren’t nearly that exciting (thankfully), but we still had to wait for at least another hour. The kids entertained themselves by making me run after them down the hallway to the garage, sticking their fingers in holes in the floor and nearly knocking the TV off the stand. It was just too much fun, I tell you!

From now on, I can guarantee you I’ll be scheduling things better and getting my oil change done when Chad can be home with the kids! Better yet, maybe I’ll just get him to take my car in for me!

Posted: January 29th, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 3

We had a great “last few days” since my last post!

On Saturday, I had everything all ready to go to church in the afternoon and Chad and I started talking about when we would go up to see Kim’s baby (I know…he’s over a month old and we still hadn’t seen him!!). We realized that all of our weekends were pretty booked for at least the next month, so Chad said, “Why don’t we just go today?” Usually, I don’t do “spontaneous” well at all, but since we already had stuff packed for an afternoon at church, it was pretty easy to swap a few things out and get ready to go up to Omaha instead.

It was supposed to be a surprise for Kim (Chad had called Rob so he knew), but we’re pretty sure she had figured it out by the time we got up there. I think she was still glad to see us though! Their baby is very cute and Ava loved holding him (I’m so mad that I forgot my camera!). Both of the kids had a lot of fun playing with Myra, too.

On Sunday, Chad was planning on working, but he changed his mind and stayed home. I took full advantage of that and went shopping all by myself (and not for anything boring like truck accessories)! I got some groceries in the morning and then after I fed the kids and got them down for their naps, I went to Goodwill, Pier 1 and Walmart. I had really good luck at all 3 places, but especially at Pier 1. I found a spice rack that was marked from $40 down to $20. It had a crack on the bottom board (it was to be sold “as is”), but I was pretty sure that Chad could fix it, so I bought it. I got it home and he used wood glue on it and you can barely even see the crack anymore! Pretty good deal for a nice rack, with quality spice jars that were already filled with spices! Just the spice alone would have cost more than $20!

On Monday, we had a MOMS Club social and they had an English professor come in and give a class on early childhood literacy. I learned quite a bit, but the really awesome part of the morning was that Kelvin stayed in the nursery with NO FUSSING!! That is a definite first for him!!

Tomorrow, I’m taking the kids swimming all by myself. I’m pretty nervous about it, but at least we’ll be with the MOMS Club, so there will be people there to help if I need it! I’m sure I’ll be posting about that soon!

Posted: January 26th, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

This morning, the kids and I went to the Brown v Board of Education historical museum. I’d never been there before, but now I realize that it was way over their heads. When Chad asked Ava what she saw, she said, “Shows…and shows….and shows.” Pretty much the only thing they had were historical videos playing in each room and displays explaining what happened. Ava was very upset that she didn’t get to see dinosaur bones (Night at the Museum (Widescreen Edition) is one of her favorite movies, so she thinks there should be dinosaur bones in every museum). But I learned a little bit more about the event and it was a nice way to get out of the house. (By the way, I’ll be posting pictures on Motherhood Moments within the next few days)

After the kids went down for their naps, I attempted to do the Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred again and I think I’m just going to have to accept the fact that I can’t. It’s not that the moves are too hard or my muscles are so sore, it’s just that it wreaks havoc on my joints because it’s so high-impact…and I’m pretty sure if I keep going, I’ll need to cross paths with someone doing a healthcare job search because fixing this is going to be a full-time job! I only got halfway through it today and my knees and feet were hurting so bad that I had to stop. I guess it’s back to Pilates! (If you have a workout video you really like, would you leave me a recommendation in the comments?)

And now I have cinnamon roll dough in the bread machine and I’m very worried about how it will turn out. Usually I cut the recipe in half, but I forgot this time and I’m afraid it won’t get kneaded completely and I’ll have to do it by hand. And I hate kneading by hand which is why I got a bread machine in the first place!

Anyway, I need to get up and be a little more productive than this before the kids wake up! And if you have a minute click over and read about Kelvin’s obsession with coffee. It definitely has me laughing!

Disclaimer: The video links in this post are affiliate links, but I have not been paid anything to promote those videos.

Posted: January 22nd, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 1

Most of you know that I had a year of college under my belt before we found out we were pregnant with Ava. With our move to Kansas, school never quite made it back into the plans. Sometimes I do think about finishing my degree by attending an online university, though.

I’m not sure if that’s something I’m 100% serious about doing right now, but Western Governors University makes it very appealing. They offer a variety of programs and degrees, including an online nursing degree, which would be perfect for me since that was my intended major. Plus, since it’s completely online, there’s considerable flexibility, which is very important to people in situations like mine. And it’s affordable, since WGU is a non-profit online university!

All that makes it a school I would definitely consider when the time comes!

Posted: January 22nd, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none

Today was one of those days…you know, the ones you’ll need top rated eye cream afterwards!

We had a great morning. We hosted playgroup for the MOMS Club at our house and the kids had a blast. And Kelvin even managed to share pretty well, even though he told me yesterday that he was not going to!

The day pretty much unraveled after that, though. For the last two days, I’ve had a headache that I just can’t kick. Not even ibuprofen cuts it. So that got worse around the time the kids went down for their naps.

While they slept, I had to go to the post office to mail out three items that I sold on ebay. Those three boxes cost $75 total!! That’s SEVENTY-FIVE, people! It’s robbery, I tell you!

And after the kids got up, they pretty much decided to be the worst possible version of themselves and add to my already bad headache. We had fussing, we had screaming, we had yogurt flying, we had toilet plungers being waved around, we had cupboards emptied…you get the picture. Not one of my shining moments as a mother.

But then they redeemed themselves by going to bed without a fight…and I’m hoping they’ll decide to make tomorrow a better day by sleeping well tonight!

Posted: January 20th, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
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After that awesome sit-ups video I left you with yesterday, I got an even funnier push-ups video today!! Luckily Chad was willing to do another set after I raced upstairs for my camera. This is easily the most hilarious video I’ve taken so far this year!

Between Chad with his sit-ups and push-ups and me with my 30-Day Shred, there’s no need for cla weight loss here!

Posted: January 20th, 2010 under Chad's Posts.
Comments: 1

Even though I already gave you the link to Ava and Kelvin’s new photobucket in my previous post, I couldn’t resist sharing this video with you. Chad has been doing sit-ups and push-ups everyday lately (no weight loss pills in our house!) and the kids always insist on helping him. I haven’t been able to get a video of them helping him with push-ups yet, but their idea of help involves laying on his back. LOL Here’s a video of them helping with sit-ups:

Posted: January 19th, 2010 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: none