He's back..............

A few years ago I heard some moms talking about something called The Elf on the Shelf. I didn't really know what they were talking about, but I knew it had something to do with looking for an elf at Christmastime. I finally decided to get in on the action last year and I am so glad I did. I ordered an elf on the shelf kit through Borders not really even knowing what I was getting. What arrived was a box that contained a small toy elf and a book explaining the story of the elf. Apparently you're supposed to put the elf away and read the story to your children. Basically the story tells how Santa Claus sends one of his scout elves to the homes of children to watch over them during the day. At night when the children are sleeping the elf reports back to the North Pole to give Santa the low down. Each morning when the children wake up they have to look for the elf because he likes to hide in different spots around the house. The one catch is that they cannot touch him or his magic will disappear. 

 

I have to admit I was very skeptical when I first read the story to my kids, but they seemed to really be into it so I thought I would give it a shot. I mean, hey if it is incentive for them not to kill each other and possibly clean their rooms it can't hurt to try right? So last year the tradition began. The kids loved their little elf and every morning during the month of December they would wake up and the first thing out of their mouth would be "Where's the elf?" Audrey liked our little elf so much that she cried herself to sleep on Christmas eve because she knew she wouldn't see it again until this year. Luckily Santa left a note telling her that if since she was so good that he would let the elf come back a little early next time. So this year the day after Thanksgiving our little friend arrived and the kids have been having a blast. Saturday Audrey and Sophie decided to destroy their bedroom and not clean it up so guess who was hanging out in their room Sunday morning? I'm actually thinking that it might not be such a bad idea to have a Valentines elf, an Easter elf, an independence day elf, a Halloween elf, a Thanksgiving elf............

Happy Monday!

I hope all of you had a fantastic holiday weekend. I have to admit that I was a bit worried that my sanity would not survive having my children and husband underfoot.  Not only did it survive, but we had a great time. We put up our Christmas tree and a few decorations (sorry, no pictures as our little tree looks kind of pitiful) and even wrapped a few presents. The present thing for me was kind of a big deal because I hate wrapping presents. I love to buy them and give them to others, but the wrapping? Not so much. 
In other accomplishments I ordered the kids new carseats (ouch!), took loads of stuff to goodwill, organized some things in the kitchen and uploaded tons of pictures to a photo storage site. My computer crashes about once a year so the photo thing is a must for me. Speaking of photos I took a few of the girls on Thanksgiving and thought I would share. Unfortunately poor Kylie can't take a picture without blinking so hers didn't come out so great. I'm going to try to schedule a real photo session with someone that half way knows what they're doing after Christmas.

Yes, Sophie has boots too she just didn't want to wear them.

I also took some time out to do some things for myself. I had my hair colored finally (darker) and ordered myself (yes me, not the children) some clothes. I'm crossing my fingers that they fit my big butt. Speaking of my big butt I added another street to my walking  route and I'm hoping that will help shrink it some. This street has two big hills and they are kicking my butt big time. I'm hoping all this walking is helping, I know that I feel better since I've started.
Have a great week everyone!

Some observations

• I just realized this morning that my husband will be home Wednesday,Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. This is the guy that usually only gets one day off work a week. I hope our marriage can handle it.
• Christmas is 32 days away which means that my baby's birthday is 30 days away. I am really starting to freak out over this. I want her to stay four at least another ten or twenty years. Thirty would be good too.
• Duke won last night. If you live within five miles of me you probably know this already from listening to me yell at the television. I'm glad my neighbors like me.
• I saw Harry Potter this weekend. Good movie, but I think I was expecting a little more from it. Still can't wait until July to see the conclusion.
• I just finished reading the first short story in Stephen King's book Full Dark, No Stars. I don't know why I read Stephen King books because they depress me to no end. 
•  I need to do something with my hair in a bad way. It has gotten way too long and the color looks like crap. Suggestions? 
•  This is so wrong. 

• I am kind of cautiously optimistic today. For the past two weeks I have been having horrible neck and shoulder pain along with some pretty bad headaches. I'm thinking maybe a pinched nerve? Yesterday and today I've been feeling much better so I'm crossing my fingers that whatever it is has worked itself out.
• Did I mention that it's basketball season?

 

Open Letter Friday

Being the dork I am I often compose little letters in my head to companies, annoying people, etc. I thought I would start sharing them with you guys (I know, I know you're thrilled right?) on Fridays. If you would like to add  yours you are more than welcome to either include it in the comment section or if I can ever remember how to do the McLinky thing then I'll include a link up at the bottom of the post. Happy Friday!
Dear Mediacom,
I have been a customer of yours for quite a few years now, but I think we may soon be parting ways. Lately having phone/internet/cable service with your company seems to be a hit or miss thing. I suppose it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the service were FREE or even reasonably priced, but it's not. It also wouldn't bother me so much if when calling customer service I actually received customer service. Novel concept, huh? As it stands now when I call your customer nonservice line I have to push approximately thirty nine different numbers only to find myself talking to someone from India. Not that I mind talking to people from India, but if I'm calling in reference to an outage in my area they really can't help me all that much. 
Another thing that has been bothering me is your service technicians. The guy you sent out last Saturday? He was especially awesome. He took one look at the cable box and said, "it's just a glitch, sometimes that happens." Really? Is that a technical term there buddy? Hmm, a glitch is why my screen keeps going black during shows? Well, if it's just a glitch then I suppose I better deal with it since there's obviously no known cure for glitches. Oh, and when he walked into my bedroom to look at my computer and saw my child sleeping in my bed and made the comment about how his wife just lays around in bed all day and how it must be so nice while looking at me and implying that's all I do? Not a good move. Then when I said something about my internet service being spotty at times and he turned to my husband and said, "Yeah, my old lady gets cranky when she doesn't get her internet too." another not so good move.  I was hoping that the next person you sent out on Wednesday would be better since we specifically requested to not have the last guy, but alas I was disappointed again. This one left us with one channel. Did you get that? ONE FREAKING CHANNEL! A really stellar one at that that featured nothing but bow hunting shows. I thought he would fix it before he left, but he informed me that he didn't have time to wait around for the problem to be fixed. 
So I think I may take the advice of both technicians and call Direct TV and make the switch. I would like to say it's been nice doing business with you, but obviously it hasn't been. 
Sincerely,
The lazy old lady that lies around in bed all day doing nothing

Embarrassing is..........

Opening your front door to sign for a package from Fed-ex to find this stack (compliments of UPS and USPS) already waiting for you on your front step.

 I am so glad my husband wasn't home, he would probably still be teasing me.

Houston we have a problem

I just realized that next week is Thanksgiving. This is a bit of a problem for me because as a general rule that is the day that we put up our Christmas tree. Why is this a problem you might ask? Well the problem is that I have no where to put the tree. We've pretty much always had a problem with the tree placement because our home is so small. In the past we would move the bookshelf to the utility room and put the tree in the corner. This year we can't do that because I got rid of the bookshelf and entertainment center and had some built ins made in that corner. I love having the built in, but it made situating the furniture kind of hard. 

 Please ignore the ugly television and lack of decorating.

 See the problem? I *think* I would like to put it where that ugly monstrosity chair is, but then what would I do with the chair? I would love to just get rid of it, but then when we have company that would be one less place for them to sit. 

 I thought about putting it where that table is on the back wall, but then it would pretty much be right in your face when walking into the front door and I could just see my kids stepping on presents. So that's out. 

 Then there is this corner to the right of the door when you walk in that I could probably use, but it would require me moving the sofa. Again, where would I put it? 

I told my husband that we needed to suck it up and just buy a bigger house, but then he reminded me that we would have to sell ours first and the likelihood of it selling before Christmas (of this year anyway) would fall somewhere in the slim to none category. So if any of you have suggestions please let me know. 

This and that

Sorry to have been MIA, things are starting to get crazy around here with the holidays coming up. Here's a little taste of what's been going on around here..... 
Audrey came home from school the other day and calmly announced that her teacher has cancer. I kind of figured this out about two months ago, but I was trying to decide if I should say anything to her or not. I didn't want to scare her or have her act differently around her teacher, yet at the same time I wanted her to understand why she was missing school so often. Apparently I over thought things because she seemed to take it in stride. I'm not sure what kind she has, but it looks like it's in remission and she just finished up the last of her treatments. 
Kylie  had kind of a big week last week. On Tuesday she was in a Thanksgiving  program at school and she did fantastic. Before you think I'm bragging on her part in the program, I promise I'm not. This child has the worst anxiety you have ever seen. Usually when she has something like this we are both in tears by the end of the night. I'm crossing my fingers that she is finally starting to outgrow it somewhat. 
She also lost a tooth last week. She hasn't lost one in years and I was under the impression that she wasn't supposed to lose anymore until she was ten, but I guess I was wrong. The funny thing is that everyone always teases her about losing her teeth because when she says that she lost a tooth she means she really lost a tooth. As in she dropped it or swallowed it. She has probably only put about three teeth out of the eight (or is it nine?) she has lost under her pillow. When she was in kindergarten she would write the tooth fairy a letter explaining why she had no tooth and leave it under her pillow. Well guess what happened to this tooth? Yep, she was brushing her teeth and spit it out and it went down the drain. Luckily dad was home to save the day. 
And of course Sophie. I've been trying to really kick things into gear with her numbers and letters. For some reason we've been having a really tough time with her counting and that's been frustrating both of us. If anyone has any good suggestions I would love to hear them.
As for me I am one happy Mama. Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our eleventh year of marriage and Duke had their first basketball game. Could not ask for a better way to wrap up the weekend.

Playing Hooky

Friday we had to take Sophie to New Orleans to get her skin graft checked out. I gave Audrey and Kylie the option of staying home and having my mom and dad watch them after school or playing hooky from school and going with us. They chose option two. Now before you get jealous thinking that we went down to the French Quarter and did all the fun touristy type stuff and ate some awesome food don't. Last year we did that and the girls didn't care for any of it. So this year after Sophie had her appointment we went to Lakeside mall and did some shopping. Sad, I know. After shopping we road over to Gulfport Ms. and went to the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center. This place is awesome. They have all these cool areas where the kids can dress up.

margaritas anyone?

 Or they can film a cooking show.

 Or experiment with science.

 

See what it's like to do construction work.

 Or just climb around and burn off some excess energy.

 

 All in all we had a really great day and I'm glad the kids chose option number two.

Open Letter Friday

Being the dork I am I often compose little letters in my head to companies, annoying people, etc. I thought I would start sharing them with you guys (I know, I know you're thrilled right?) on Fridays. If you would like to add  yours you are more than welcome to either include it in the comment section or if I can ever remember how to do the McLinky thing then I'll include a link up at the bottom of the post. Happy Friday!
Dear Cyrus Family,
I realize that you guys have your own personal issues going on right now, but umm, you might want to open your eyes for a minute. You see your little Miley is kind of turning into a full on ho. I know that sounds harsh and that everyone keeps saying that she's turning 18 soon and is just trying to break out of her squeaky clean Disney image, but guess what? That's the same thing that everyone said about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. You know right before they moved to crazytown USA.
Now I'll be the first to admit I've never really been a fan of Miley, heck my kids don't even care for her and they're supposedly her target audience. Still in all as a parent I feel I would be remiss to not voice my concerns. The pole dancing thing? Tacky, but didn't bother me too terribly bad. What does bother me? Seeing pictures of your child splashed all over the place wearing a see through tee shirt and no bra. Very, very disturbing. So please step up to the plate and do something (other than pimping out)  with your child before she becomes Hollywood's next trainwreck.
Sincerely,
A. Concerned Mom

My kids are so strange

Last night the girls helped me put a few decorations out for Thanksgiving. The kitchen looked especially cute with the placemats and napkin rings they made last year. After we had our little Martha moment we went about our bedtime routine as usual. Or so I thought. This morning I woke up to this:

 Apparently someone in our family is an aspiring comedian.

Wordless Wednesday

Up, up and away!

Linking up with Angry Julie Monday

 

Finally finished!

My husband and I have been working on a project for the girls for what feels like forever now. It didn't actually take long to put together, it was just a matter of finding time to do it. It is finally done now. Introducing the new puppet theater/bakery/lemonade stand.

 Sorry for the craptacular pictures (as usual). We originally were going to make a puppet theater, but then decided the girls could use it for other things if they wanted. They told us they wanted a bakery and lemonade stand so I made different signs for them to change out with magnets on the back. 

I also painted a chalkboard on the front so they could have something to write on. Please pretend you don't notice the crooked pink lines around it. I was trying to frame it, but misplaced my painters tape so I had to freehand it. After I finished I realized the tape was underneath the stand the entire time. So typical. 
The sides have hinges so we can fold it flat and slide it under the bed when the girls aren't using it. It's not perfect of course (Duh! It's something my husband and I made), but so far the girls seem to like it. 

Words escape me

I don't know how things are done where you live, but here the general consensus is that if you don't want people trick or treating at your home you turn off your porch light. Occasionally you may forget about turning off the porch light and have children knock on your door. In that case a simple "I'm sorry I'm all out of candy" or "We don't participate in Halloween" will suffice. Heck, even a nice little note on the door would be good. Which leads me to wonder about this house.

Honestly, I couldn't make this crap up if I tried. I mean really, are trick or treaters that bad that you have to rope off your driveway and front porch? Perhaps you had a bad experience with Halloween as a child? And yes, I would totally be lying if I told you that I have not thought about dressing up and ringing their doorbell just to see what happens.