Competence, we got it!

Something happened on Friday that has bugged me all weekend. I thought I would share so I can get some opinions on whether or not I'm overreacting. 
Last week Kylie wasn't feeling well so I kept her home on Wednesday. On Thursday she seemed to be feeling better so I sent her and told her to call me if she felt bad. She made it all day and did not complain when she got home so I sent her on Friday. Around 11:30 the school nurse called. The conversation went exactly like this:
Nurse Competent- "I have Kylie in my office and she tells me she feels dizzy."
Me- paused a minute here waiting for her to tell me what her temp is if she looks pale, coughing, etc. 
Nurse Competent- silence
Me- "Okay, I guess I'll come pick her up then."
Nurse Competent- "Here you can talk to her" then she puts Kylie on the phone.
Really? That's it? You don't even ask the kid a few questions to see if they are really sick or faking it? Wow, wish we had you at my school when I was growing up. I would have been in your office all the time. By the way Kylie was not faking. She told me that she had been standing at her teachers desk to speak to her and got dizzy and sat on the floor because she was scared she was going to fall down. The nurse related none of this to me even though the teacher sent a note to her with her symptoms. So I get to the school and go to the first aid room thinking that surely the nurse will come out and talk to me so that when I call the doctors office I can tell them all of Kylie's symptoms. Nope. I get there and Kylie is sitting in a chair outside the nurses office. The nurse does not even come out to see if I picked her up. Now am I crazy for being annoyed? I could understand if this was a parent volunteer but this is nurse with a degree that is getting paid. I also realize that she's not a doctor and cannot make a diagnosis, but to not even take a temperature? Heck she could have given the thermometer to Kylie and she could have done it herself. Not that hard.

Finally finished!

A few weeks ago I posted about a project I was thinking of doing. Well it is finally done now so I thought I would share the results with you. 

 As usual I ask that you please, please, please ignore my horrible photography. I promise this room is really bright and cheerful in real life and not covered in shadow. 
I found the plans for the bed on Ana White's fantastic website. If you've never checked out her website then I strongly urge you to do so. It is absolutely wonderful. The plans are actually for a twin size bed, but we wanted to make it a little larger so we could use a full size mattress instead. Luckily Ana had a link to another blogger that made the same bed in full size. I contacted Sherri at Luvabargain and she was kind enough to email the me the dimensions. By the way Sherri's blog is another fantastic one full of great deals so be sure to check it out too!
The bed did not take that long to finish, but with all the school projects, sick kids and my husbands work schedule it seemed like it took forever. Or maybe I'm just really impatient. Basically the only changes we made to the plans were the little window ledge (the girls needed somewhere for their cookie jars to go!) and the ladder. We decided to just use the ladder we had for the bunk beds rather than make one because we're lazy like that. 

 In hindsight I wish that we had put the ladder and the window on opposite ends because now the ladder is in front of the girls art house (another one of our pbk knock offs). Now we have to move the ladder for them to draw, but it's not a really big deal because they have been playing inside of the playhouse so much I think they have forgotten about everything else in the room.

The inside is a bit crowded because I gave the girls free rein to do what they wanted with it and they decided to move their table in. By the way as you can see I finally made them a new tablecloth. I've only been promising to make them one for umm.. about two years now. 

 For those of you that really love Pottery Barn Kids you might want to scroll past this next picture really quickly.

 I had a valance from PBK that I wanted to use in the window, but it was much too long. So I committed blasphemy of sorts and cut it and made two curtains with it. My husband got a good laugh out of me cringing while I cut it. As far as the bedding we just kept the quilt we had. As much as I love to buy new bedding I really like this quilt. Also, I thought it would be easier to make the bed using the twin quilt as opposed to a full size one that we would have to tuck forever.

 I overheard Sophie telling her dad last night that he really needed to make her an oven now so she could bake cookies so I have a feeling it won't be too much longer before we're working on something else.

Swimming in molasses

I feel like I have been slogging through this week and getting nothing accomplished. I was hoping to post pictures of the girls new bed earlier this week, but then as I was holding a piece of the molding in place while waiting for my husband to nail it it slipped. This would not have been so bad, but it had liquid nail on the back of it so we ended up with liquid nail all over my pretty paint job. That of course meant sanding and repainting because that junk does not just wipe off. Then I realized that the back rail was on backwards. Not a big deal as far as safety goes, but once I realized it it began to bug me because it just looked so wrong. So today I've made him take it off and redo it. Crossing my fingers to have it all completely finished this week.
Then the dreaded school projects. I know I've said it a million times on here, but I truly despise school projects. I know it's supposed to be a great learning experience, blah blah blah.... but I can't stand them. Kylie had two to do and Audrey had one so we've been busy every night lately working one project or another. *Hopefully* we're done for now. 
And of course my kids are sick. Nothing major just sinus issues from all the pollen. Yes, that's right pollen. In January. While many of you are stuck indoors because of all the snow my kids have been playing in the backyard developing seasonal allergies. The really awesome thing? It's supposed to get down in the 20's tonight. Our weather is so weird and unpredictable. 
On a more positive note, Duke plays tonight, Yankee candle just sent me a catalog with some new fragrances and I bought a $20 amazon gift card for $10. If any of you are interested in the gift card thing it's through living social.  

Thursday ramblings

• Last night Duke lost their first game of the season. My husband was stupid enough to comment that now I know how it feels when his football team loses a game. Not that same buddy. Not the same at all.
• Pottery barn kids is killing me. Yesterday I made the mistake of looking at my order history. Within one months time it would appear that I have made eleven orders. Even worse? This morning they sent me an email with a discount code for sale items. Order number twelve should be arriving soon.
• I've always thought that parents that do their childrens school projects for them are lame. Kylie has one due tomorrow (almost finished!) and I am having to force myself not to finish it for her. Not because she can't do it or do a good job at it, but because I want her to have just one day this week that she doesn't have to work on homework until bedtime.
• I realized this morning that I have less than one month before I have to take Sophie to see the plastic surgeon. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it. I do not want to do this. I do not want to travel ten hours and I definitely do not want to have to decide on whether she has another surgery or not.

• I finally let Sophie open her forgotten Christmas gift yesterday. I told her about it last week, but asked her to wait until we got her room somewhat back in order before opening it. She loved it, but I cannot get over how tiny this thing is!

 

• I'm thinking that Monday I will probably post pictures of the girls bed. I feel like it's taking forever, but really all that's left is to add the trim around the door and one of the windows. So far they are really loving it.

A proud mommy moment

Last night Kylie and Audrey both received awards at their schools P.T.A. meeting. 

Audrey won citizen of the month for December. 

Kylie won a trophy for an essay she wrote. It was submitted to a county wide competition and won and now is going to state.

Obviously I did not get pictures of them receiving their awards. My craptacular camera chose last night to not work. Awesome. Luckily my husband was able to fix whatever was wrong with it when he got home so I was to snap some pictures of the girls this morning. 

What I've been up to (a.k.a. the longest post evah!)

Things are finally starting to settle down around here somewhat. First we had Sophie's birthday, then Christmas, then we decided to start on the playhouse/loft bed project and then Kylie's birthday. My house has been a total disaster and I think I am officially insane now. I was going to do a post yesterday about what's been going on around here but decided instead to attempt to get my house back in order (somewhat) so you get to hear all about it today. I know you're completely underwhelmed. So here we go......

• Thursday morning Audrey left for school with a loose tooth. I know I sound like a horrible mom, but I crossed my fingers and prayed when she got on the bus that she would lose it at school. She whined about it the night before (and that girl can whine!) and all morning long and quite frankly I didn't think my nerves could handle it anymore. Apparently her teachers nerves couldn't take it either because when she came home she told me that her teacher pulled it for her.  

•  Friday of course was Kylie's birthday. We gave her a present before school and later in the day Sophie and I took cupcakes to her class. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that she's nine already. I think next year when she hits the double digits I'm really going to lose it. 

• On Saturday just to show yet another example of my complete insanity I took the girls to Toys R Us. They had some gift cards to spend so I thought I would let them go buy some more crap toys because you know, we just really don't have enough around here. Naturally Audrey had an all out fit in the middle of the store. It was awesome. My favorite part was when she started wailing, "You don't love me that's why you never buy me anything!" and everyone in the store had to stop and give me dirty looks. Because you know, no ones kids ever have meltdowns at the toy store. On a good note though I think I actually managed to achieve the impossible (for me anyway) that day. I got not one, but several pictures of my girls TOGETHER! Not only did I get some together pictures of them, but they were all looking at the camera! Crazy I tell ya!

•  Sunday sadly was the day from hell. I kid you not. We decided to have family over for Kylie's birthday on this day since it was the only day that my husband had off. My house was still a mess because we had to move everything out of Audrey and Sophie's room for the bed project we've been working on. For some people this would not be a big deal, but I am extremely anal retentive about my house. My family thinks I have OCD because I cannot stand to have anything not in it's proper spot and have a tendency to umm, kind of freak out a little when it's not.  So anyway I was not in a very good mood to put it mildly. My parents showed up an hour early, the mother in law arrived ('nough said), and then my brother came by. My mom and mother in law apparently thought it would be fun to see who could be the most depressing. They talked about social security, their health and how broke they are now that they are retired. My brother sat and texted his girlfriend the entire time and then acted somewhat put out that I didn't have a charger that would fit his blackberry. And did I mention my house was a mess? Luckily Kylie told me that she had a great time and of course that's all that matters. 

Oh and Duke played that night and won so that kind of helped too. Anyway, that's what I've been up too. The bed has been moved into place finally. I still need to add the trim around the windows and door and do the curtains and then I'll share some pictures of it.

Happy birthday Kylie!

My "baby" is nine today. 

1 year

2 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 years

8 years

 9 years old

Happy birthday Kylie, we love you!

Blame it on mommy brain

Ever since Kylie was a baby there has been something really weird going on around our house. It seems like everytime there is a gift giving occasion I forget or misplace something that I mean to give someone. For example, I'll buy the girls something for Easter and find it six months later in the back of my closet. Seriously, this happens all the freaking time. So for the past two years I've been trying to do better. For Christmas and birthdays I'll make a list on my computer of everything I've bought and check it religiously. By the way, this has come in really handy a few times when I've almost bought something more than once. I *thought* I had everything down pat. Then today I was browsing ebay (why, I have no idea) and saw one of these:

 The first thought that popped into my head was, "Aww, that's so cute!" The second thought was "Wait a minute we have that already. I bought that months ago for Sophie. Why hasn't she been playing with it?" Then I realized that she wasn't playing with it because she never received it. Doh. I checked my list and sure enough there was a note next to the tea cart that I needed to wrap it and put it under the tree. Oh well better late than never I suppose

Here we go......

We've been a little busy around here today.

 

One last hurrah

Since Kylie and Audrey have to go back to school tomorrow we thought we would try to do something fun in the kitchen. To quote Homer Simpson "Mmm, donuts....".

 I guess tomorrow I'll go back to healthy eating, walking and whipping my house into shape. Darn it.