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**

It was bound to happen...

Well, it was bound to happen. Pool + baby = heart failure!! brayden had gotten really brave with the pool towards the end of summer. He'd walk right to the edge, but someone would always catch him...and he'd laugh like crazy. We all told him "no-no" everytime and I really thought we were done with the worry. NOT!

Today Jim was working outside in the shed and Brayden was "helping" him out. I went outside to see how things were going and I thought it was a bit too chilly for Brayden to be wearing just pants and short sleeves. So he and I headed in to get him a jacket. We are headed back out to the shed and I look out in the field to the west of us and see buzzards swarming over what I assumed to be a calf. I assumed this cause I could see the Momma cow walking around it and charging at the buzzards (or that's what it looked like). Honestly, this all transpired in like a minute or less...but obviously a minute too long! I look back to see Braydon at the steps of the pool hovering one of his sweet, little, fat feet (in his cute new Nike sneaks) and no sooner could I scream "BRAYDON NO..."...splash...he was under. I was only a few feet away so I was able to snatch him before his hair could get wet. Holy Smokes!!! I squeezed that baby so tight Jim was having to really wrestle hard to get the wet clothes off of him. He was very calm telling Braydon (and Me) that it's all ok. I still couldn't release him. I knew he was ok, but I couldn't let go. Ugh! So scary.

So I strip us both down and get warm dry clothes on. He's still unsure if he should stop crying so I grab the burpa and woobie and we snuggle up in the big blue chair and I patted him into nigh-nights. :)

We haven't gone back outside. So I wonder what his reaction will be towards the pool. I hope that it'll keep him back from the edge, but I also hope that he isn't terrified of it next summer...only time will tell.

OMG

Oh my goodness. Please take the time to listen to the clip I have linked here. And before you do...please go potty...you'll thank me later :)

http://www.chumfm.com/MorningShow/bits/march24.swf

Now go have a great rest of the day!!

Weigh in #3

Here are the weights from this Friday's weigh in:

Jim - 228 (lost 1 lb)
Angie - 166 (gained 1 lb)
George - 238 (same)
Katie - 134 (newbie & happy to have her)
Mom - (on vacation)
Dad - (on vacation)

As always, anyone who wants to join just send me your weight on Fridays.

Way to go Jim on the loss and George for maintaining!!

Tagged

I’ve been tagged by my dear friend Kim.

The rules are : List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets. Tag 5 friends and list them. Then, those people need to write on their blogs (or email) about 5 weird things, and state the rules, and tag 5 more people. Don’t forget to let the people you tag know by posting a comment on their blog!

1. I love pickle snow cones (not the pickles...just the juice). I have ever since I was a kid. It was the "in" thing at Roby Elementary!! Now I'm just considered a freak :)

2. I just hate it when people don't give "the wave" when you've done something nice...like letting them cross into front of your car in the parking lot (as opposed to plowing them over), or when you let someone pass.

3. I love to kiss my babies feet. I love baby toes!!

4. I have an obsession with clean counter tops. The rest of the house could be in shambles, but the counters must be clean!

5. I clean my ears twice a day...everyday. And if I try to go to bed without cleaning my ears after a shower I'll lay there till I drive myself nuts...and get up to clean my ears! Gross but true!

I have tagged: Lisa, Beth, Jim, Reagan, and Cheryl

Weigh In #2

Here are the weights from this Friday's weigh in:

Jim - 229 (lost 2 lbs)
Angie - 165 (lost 1 lb)
George - 238 (lost 2 lbs)
Mom - (on vacation)
Dad - (on vacation)

As always, anyone who wants to join...please do. The more the merrier on this journey :)

Great job every one!

Finally.......

Stop the presses people! My husband has blogged. Please take a moment, drop by his blog (his link is on the right side of my blog), and write him a comment. Maybe this will encourage him to continue :) I definitely want to leave all football blogs to him since he knows all the ins and outs of the game and I know diddly squat :)

Random Act of....Cruelty

As parents we know the day will come that someone will hurt our child emotionally (and hopefully never physically). It just really sucks when you can't really do anything about it except tell them that you love them and you do understand what they are going thru. I still remember my parents trying to console me, but at that moment you feel as if no one can understand your pain.

Nat's group of friends, from the most part (and from what she tells me) are pretty tight knit. She even got them to take in the new girl I mentioned a few blogs back. Well, obviously this sweet act has now worked against her :(

...here's the story...
I got to get Nat on Friday afterschool. She gets out at 3:20. It's 3:40 and still no Nat. I'm in between mad and panicked. They I see her...wiping her eyes...so I shift to heartache. She tells me that the blue jacket (a very special one that Grandma Racecar bought her - that she's been looking for all week) is still missing. And to top it off, her sandals that she left in her locker at gym time were gone when she came back. So after school she went to the office to ask if anyone turned in some shoes. This wasn't handled very well by the ladies in the he office because they start joking with her and say "I have a shoe (and hold up their foot)" and then the other lady does the same. (.......not happy with them by the way! (Waiting to talk to the principle about this.) Well that was the straw that broke this little, tiny camel's back. When she got into the car and told me all of this, I told the kids to sit tight cause I needed to talk to the principle about this (he was still out in front of the school). I was gonna lead right into what the ladies said, but the second heard me say that one of the items missing was a jacket....he says "a light blue jacket with white stripe down the arm?" I was delighted. That was her jacket...yea! But he comes back with less enthusiaum and says "I need you to meet with Mrs. Watson (asst. Principle)". I was a little confused as to why this issue needed the asst. pulled in, but I didn't care. I wanted the jacket. He takes me to her office and I think I'm gonna grab and go...I have kids in the car ya know. But they both tell me that they need to speak with me...and shut the door. What the..??!! She starts off by asking me if Nat's told me of any bullying towards her of if she's acted like something's wrong. I told her no and that Nat does usually tell me if somethings happening at school. She said "well we are VERY concerned about where we found this jacket..." I feel my chest tighten and I hold my breath. She said it was stuffed in the toilet!!! What the h-ll did my little girl do to deserve this? As we talked, the asst. told me that it could be someone did it maliciously or it was just a random situation and the kid thought "hey, a jacket...lets stuff it in a toilet."

I head back to the car and sugar coat things best I can and I ask her if anything's going on that I should know about. Then I ask her if she has any idea where the jacket was found. She has no clue. So I tell her. Matt got mad (way to go little brother)!!! Nat got confused and sad. She then tells me that her current group of friends are excluding her out of things and that new girl that she was so nice to was one of them. She said they make fun of how she dresses, where she lives, and that she's flat chested. I have some VERY immature response I want to tell her to use...But I didn't. I just told her that now is a good time to be more selective of her friends. Try to find someone who's more consistently nice, not consistently cruel. It's also hard cause another one of the girls is a friend from softball. But even after all that, she still doesn't think that anyone of them was responsible for the cruel incident.

She's such a good kid. Even as "broken" and hurt as she was...and I'm sure feeling very insecure (as we all have at that age)...as we drive past this couple who lost their home and now live in a group of tents, Nat tells me to please stop the car cause she knitted them some tobbogins for when it gets cool!!! AS far as I see it, those kids should be lining up down the road just to get the opportunity to be her friend.


***Update***
Just got a call from the Principle and the shoe have been found and he apologized for the ladies behavior towards Natalie. Looks like a good start for the week ;)

Weigh In #1

Here's the starting weights. Any who want to, can join at any time.

Me - 166
Jim - 231
Dad - 193
Mom - 166
George - 240

Good luck to all of those who are taking on the weight loss battle :)

Matt's 9th Birthday Party

As you all probably know, Sunday was Matthew's birthday. He turned a BIG OLE 9 years old. And he was busting at the seams waiting for that day to get here!





He he is with his birthday loot (minus one present from Brayden that he got to open the day before).








Well despite the rain (the much needed rain)...we still had a great time. The Water Park actually never opened, so we had the party indoors at the Natatorium.







As you can see, it has an indoor slide at one pool and high dives at the Olympic sized pool. Everyone had a good time and we all played hard.







Oh Matt... :)






It wasn't easy to catch the action shots off the slide, but I tried. Here's Jim in a sheet of water.





Daddy managed to have just as much fun as the kids :)







Mom and Dad didn't swim, but seemed to have a fun time watching all the kids (big and small) play.





Thanks goodness for Brianna. She was Nat's saving grace at a boy's party:)






Brayden may have not gotten to have real cake, but he had no problem chowing down on the rice crispy "cake".






How do you know if you've gotten the birthday boy the right toy or not.........

Back in?

I'm extending the invitation to anyone read to start up their weight loss. I for one am ready to get back on track. And it's fine if I'm the only one reporting my weight each week. I just have to "report" in order to mentally stick with it.

I will start back on "true" Weight Watchers on Tues and do weigh ins on Fridays. Anyone who wants to join in, please email me your weight sometime on Friday (9/8) and I'll post the start weights. If anyone's uncomfortable with me using your real name, but still want to post...we can give you a fake name. Whatever works. Jim and I are living proof that the weight can come off...and CAN come back on if you slip. We've both come too far to let all this hard work slip completely away.

Good luck! We can do this :)

Football

As I mentioned in the previous post, Matt had 2 scrimmages this past Saturday. Matt had a good time and that's all that really matters. To me is was just mass chaos, but that's largely due to my lack of knowledge of the game. Matt didn't get to play much and when he did it was on defense...since he doesn't have a complete grasp of the game yet. He like to tackle, so not being on offense is ok with him. Here's some shots from the 2nd scrimmage (since I ran late to the 1st one and didn't get to see him play in that game).



Here he is getting suited up for his 2nd game. Between games him and several other boys went to "soak your undies world" (aka: the mister area).






Dad's gotta make sure it's all done right. Can't have our boy get hurt (anymore than usual :))







Matt is #53. He's just to the right of #44.






Matt just played some good "D" and he's ready for some water!






You can tell Matt's really into football cause he's actually watching the game when he's out...as opposed to goofing on the sideline :)




From what I understand, we will have 6 games starting on Sept. 9th. I don't have a schedule yet, but for those of you interested in catching a game...let me know and I'll get the info to as soon as I have it.

Day 3

Day 3 - I'm waiting in line to pick up Matthew. He sees that I'm a few cars back and I can see that he's telling his teacher that he sees me. I see her hold him back (nicely). So I pull up in front of them...and she's walking with him. I hang my head, this is only day 3 and the teachers walking matt to the car. Oh dear. She comes up to the passenger side window and I just nervously laugh. She promptly tells me that everythings fine that she just wanted to give me a note. "A NOTE??" I thinking..."..not good..." And this whole time Matt's climbing into the car with a confused look on his face saying that he didn't do anything. The teacher tells us both to rest easy, that it's a good note. I think we both sunk back in our seat with relief and scramble to open the note to see what it says. I'll be danged, it was a good note. She said that Matt was a joy to have and was a great participant at discussion time........... Hummm, who'd a thought that :) Way to go Matt!

Day 3 was great again for Nat. Still pumped about band and partially still stressing about not having a flute yet. I told her to chill and she said she would...she's just excited :)


Here they are in their Day 3 outfits and if you look closely, you'll see that we had an odd occurrence that morning. Yes, yes...that is rain reminants you see :)





Beth asked how Brayden was with the kids gone. He's pretty much back into his old routine of eating, sippy cups, snacks, naps, and Oobi!! Here he is dancing to the Backyardigans.






...hard to capture dancing on camera...





Hope you all have a great weekend. This will be Matt's first football scrimmage. He has 2 on Saturday. One at 9am and one at 11am. That's gonna be one pooped and sweaty boy! I'll post pictures Sunday or Monday.