Panic, Pancakes, and Pumpkins

I have 3 stories for ya...so this might take a while... But if you stick with it, there's pictures at the end :)

Panic:
We just had our back porch closed in to become a play/sun room. It has 4 windows and French doors. The contractor did everything but paint. I said I'd do it to save some $$. He finished on Thursday so I need to wait till Friday to let the caulk dry. So when I laid Brayden down for his nap I decided to get started. I painted till it was time to go get the kids from school. So I went out the French doors to the backyard to rinse out my paint brush. I closed the door behind me so that no additional flies would get into the house. When I was done I went back to the French door to find that it was locked. Unbeknownst to me, this particular set of French doors will lock, but still let the handle turn completely (from the inside). Unlike the other doors in my house that once you lock the door the handle won't turn but just a tiny bit (from the indside). So..I'm locked out, baby's in the house and I can't get to him....sound freakin familiar! No it's not a car this time, but I'm feeling just as helpless. I run every scenario thru my head as to how I could get into the house. The garage is closed with the truck in it. No phone outside. I'm barefooted. No neighbors in sight. No unlocked window or door. My only option is the one option I kept wanted to avoid, but a lot of time has passed and I've walked laps around the house and nothings coming to me...I gotta break a window. "Lucky" for me, when the windows were delivered, one of the panes in the double paned windows was broken and is to be replaced. So...smash... Ugh, I hated to do that and I sure hated to do the clean up...which I'm STILL finding pieces of glass! But I got to my baby and my kids in time after school.

Pancakes:
Anyone who knows of my cooking abilities...knows they are VERY limited. I've tried pancakes in the past, but have failed miserably. But after finding out that certain brands are made without eggs, I knew I needed to give it a try cause the choices for Brayden's breakfast are very limited. So Saturday morning I gave it a shot. They actually came out pretty good. Jim gave me a thumbs up and the kids seems to like them too. They were a little burned in a few places, but I'll get better with time :) Woo Hoo. Major accomplishment and I had to show that I wasn't a total flop as a Mom after the locking out incident!! Which FYI...I've now hidden a key outside :)

Pumpkins:
Natalie informed me while in Walmart on Saturday that it was time to buy pumpkins. Oops, Halloween has really snuck up on me this year! So we picked out the biggest, most round pumpkins we could find. Sunday afternoon after I finally finished painting, Jim and the kids headed outside to carve pumpkins with the new carving kit we'd bought. It' was a lot of time and work, but I think they all did a great job...


Jim did the carving for Brayden's pumpkin...















Here's Nat with the eewwie gooey :) I think she loves it as much as I do!













Matt doesn't enjoy it as much and asked me to do it, but I'd finally gotten all the paint washed off of me and I wasn't up for being messy again.















Brayden was very curious about these seeds on the ground...















And he found out really quick that he didn't like them and that he didn't like the eewy gooey on his hands.















Once he decided that he didn't like the seeds he figured he see what Marbles thought.

















Matt hard at work, Brayden "helping".















Matt's 1/2 concentrating 1/2 goofing :)















Nat taking this way too serious, but it did pay off cause here pumpkin looks great.















Here is Nat's pumpkin














Here is Matt's pumpkin...

















And here is Brayden's pumpkin (Dad's handy work :))















Jim took some great pics at Matt's game last Saturday and hopefully he'll post them on his blog since he knows what to tell you happened in each picture.

Also, thanks for those who always comment. And for those who sneaky peeky ;)... I'd love to hear from you too :)

Weigh in #7

Jim - 231 (+2 lbs)
Angie - 167 (same)
Dad - 199 (same)
Mom - 172 (+2 lbs)

Not an encouraging week for any of us. But I think our bodies are getting into "comfort" zones with these weights. Which we've all done awesome. This it the point where the body's gonna be reluctant to let the weight go. Even with that being said, it's very frustrating.

Maybe having some newbie's might encourage us :) So anyone...anyone at all that would like to join this, just let me know. No matter if you have 5 lbs or 50 lbs to lose.

Side note...and if you do ever read any of my blogs...comments are always enjoyed :)

School Pictures

For the past few years I have been only ordering the smallest package on the kids school pictures because they have been so crappy. Not that my kids took a bad picture, but the photographer would take the picture when they were talking or looking away/down OR like with last year...brush Nat's hair to how they liked it after I'd already fixed it!! Anyway... So I did as always and ordered the smallest package. Well low and behold, these pictures are awesome! I scanned them in but I don't think my scanner's giving the pictures justice (they show up way darker than they are...dadgummit!). They really are great pictures. And because I didn't order the bigger package, I can't send one to ALL of you :( But now I'm torn cause I really want an 8x10 of these but they want $18 EACH for a 8x10 "reorder". Ugh...it's killing me. I'm just such a tightwad...but oh how I love good pictures!!

Anyway..here's my awesome looking big kids :)

Weigh In #6

Everyone had an excellent week! Way to go guys!!

Jim - 229 (1lb loss)
Angie - 167 (3lb loss, 18 lbs from goal)
Dad - 199 (2lb loss)
Mom - 170 (3lb loss)
George - (no weight)
Katie - (no weight)

I'm so proud of us! Hoping for great numbers again next week. We can do it :)

Response Time

As you read this, you may wonder if I'm self-inflicting my drama...maybe so, but it's sure not my intent. I told you a while back about Brayden taking a dive into the pool. Well, Brayden didn't do this one..but it involved me being scared to death for him.

Me and Brayden ran to Walmart real quick before going to get the kids from school. We got done with 10 mins to spare to get to Matt. I loading up the groceries and went to put Brayden in his seat. I kept dropping the keys and my shoulder wallet thing kept sliding off my shoulder. So I stopped buckling Brayden for a minute so I could throw the keys and wallet over the front seat so I could continue without the aggravation. As I threw them over the seat my sub went "ding-ding-ding". I thought "huh, what's it dinging about?" Well if you own a Chevy, you might already know that it went ding-ding-ding to tell me that it was locking it's doors!!! But this didn't dawn on me and I close Brayden's door and go to open mine. Yup...it was locked...ALL THE DOORS WERE LOCKED!! And no matter how hard I pulled on the handles they didn't open and trying to "will" them open wasn't working. And Brayden was all buckled in so I couldn't tell him to get my keys and unlock the doors (as if he'd know what the heck I was talking about).

So there I stand, completely freaking out and having no idea what to do. You might say to call someone, but along with my baby, keys, and wallet being in the he car...guess where the cell phone was???? Still freaking and trying to decide what to do... I gotta get help, but I can't leave my baby unattended (even thought at this point how well was I caring for him?). I look a few cars down on the opposite side of where I'm parked and I see a Mom with a baby talking on a cell phone. I go and interrupt her and tell her as calmly as I can what I'd done. I must have not been too calm cause she looked at me as if I was completely retarded...or as an unfit Mom. Regardless I told her I needed her help. Could she please call someone...the police, locksmith, anyone? She called 911 and I ran back to Brayden and we played peek-a-boo. As most of you know I've had some issues with the Wise County Sheriff Deptment's response time. (It took them 40 mins to respond to my burglary call.) So I'm still totally freaking cause I just know that Brayden's gonna start screaming at any minute and I can't do anything about it. Luckily yesterday was fairly cool so I wasn't worried about him getting to hot in there. And I was panicking cause I couldn't get to the other kids or call there school to tell them were I was. I couldn't call Jim to help...I was helpless and it sucked. I was just about to give in and cry and low and behold the Decatur police was there. I didn't have anything to measure the time with, but I just know it was less than 3 mins since that lady called it in. I thanked him profusely and he handed me a release waiver to unlock the doors and he frantically worked to open the door. POP! He was in and I was all over Brayden like stink on poo!

I was so impressed at how fast the police responded. I don't know if he just happened to be near by, or if they floor it when they found out a child was locked in the car. The back up policeman showed up just as he unlocked the door, so even the 2nd guys response time was impressive. I wanted to hug them both, but I was having a hard time letting go of Brayden. And they really didn't want to hear about it. But I took no offense to it. I'm sure I looked like a real loser to them and they'd just assume to go back to work.

The things that can just stop your heart happen so quick. And I thank God that he helps me pull my head out of my butt long enough to keep real harm from coming to my babies!

Weigh In #5

Ok it's week #5 and am very disgusted with myself. But for me, that typically what it takes for me to get off my butt (literally) and get in gear. I started up the weight loss thing thinking that would be enough incentive, but I was wrong. I wasn't mentally ready to get out of my comfort zone with food. And it's been 3 MONTHS since I've even attempted to work out. So, with that being said...I'm there...I'm ready to quit fooling around. No more "Come Monday I'm gonna start being good..." Next week I will show a loss! I've thrown down the gauntlet to myself :)

Now for this weeks weigh in:

Jim - 230 (2lb gain)
Angie - 170!!!!! (4lb gain)
Dad - 201 (2lb gain)
Mom - 173 (2lb gain)
George - (no weight)
Katie - (no weight)

So yes, I take the "prize" of the most weight gained this week. But it's definitely not a "woo hoo" moment. Next week will be better. We can all do this. We've come so far!! Good luck :)

On a side note....If you need a good laugh, go to the link for Reagan's blog and read her latest post!! And to see an extremely cute baby, scroll down and see some of the pics she's posted.

Homecoming Parade

Even though Decatur Homecoming wasn't that big of a deal to us...the parade was! This is first time any of the kids have gotten to be in a parade. And I remember as a kid that this was big time fun...heck it was fun for me to get to Matt in it. Matthew got to be in the parade because all the Decatur and Wise county pee-wee and midget football teams got to be in the parade. He was so pumped! Mostly because for all those out there who didn't believe that HE was a football player...THIS was proof! (This has been a big issue with him.)

I didn't get any shots of the baby, but you all know what he looks like...and that he's cute :) Didn't do it on purpose...it's a hindsight issue.

Matt's float was towards the back of the parade line. So Nat got to gather tons of candy while we waited to get to see him.















She even got to see several of her friends in the parade and they all made sure to load her up with the good stuff. Josh (a boy who I found out really likes her) hooked her up with a Reeses Peanut Butter cup. And this was a truely sweet gesture since 98% of the candy thrown was hard candies.















Here's Matt's team float. They are the Decatur Midget Eagles. He's #49.















We kept hollering his name so he'd see where we were, but it was a confusing time...having to throw candy...and eat as much as he could without getting caught :)
















Then he spotted us... (You'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it. then you can see Matt giving his classic wave)















It was a fun parade. Afterwards the parade line went to the football field where they had a pep rally. We didn't go...they don't do anything for me and Jim anymore. But we DID go get ice cream...that always does something for me :)

Weigh In #4

I don't have all the weights this week, but I'm posting anyway. If you want to email or leave me a comment with your weight I'll add it to the list.

Jim - (no weight)
Angie - 166 (no gain/no loss)
Dad - 199 (vacations over)
Mom - 171 (home safe)
George - 235 (3lb loss)
Katie - 133 (1lb loss)

Way to go George and Katie. Guess I better get in gear :)

Anyone else wanting to join? As always....would love to have you! If it's more incentive, we can start up an $$ pool again.

**Look again later today and I'll try to post the parade pictures**