One of "those" days

I spent the whole morning at work trying to figure out how to do a report which I am sure I have done in the past, but for some reason I just could not make it work. I don't feel good about how I used the tax payer's money today!
Then I came home and had this conversation with Preston while I cooked lunch:
Preston: Mom, do you want to play hangman with me?
Me: sure
Preston: (with his piece of paper and pencil in hand) Mom, how do you spell power ranger?
After I successfully "guessed" his puzzle, he told me I am the smartest person he knows! Wow! Now I just have to convince everyone else!

Tonight is science night at Carbondale school...but my kids do not want to go. I spend a lot of time looking at and worrying about how things are going with the schools and I sort of feel like we should go, but geez why would I want to go to something they don't want to attend? Plus I just do not need anywhere else to go. Guilt will surely set in!?

Overheard

Madison: Miss Quincy - this is child protective services - we are here to remove your baby until you clean up your messes.

Quincy: what?

Madison: I need Maggie (the newest dolly) she is in my care until you clean up after yourself.

Quincy: I CAN"T clean - that is your job!

Madison: You HAVE to help or else you can't have back your baby.

Quincy: Ok but you have to do all the hard stuff.

So I am thinking maybe we watch too much tv around here? Might it be that my new infatuation with the show Hoarders is coming back to haunt me?!?

weekend fun

This is my mom with Harper. She tends to be a little bit fussy in the evenings, but when grandma is in control, everything is sunshine and rainbows!
(I mean that Harper tends to be fussy in the evening, not my mom).

Friday evening we went to my brother's house for my niece's 5th birthday. She got a webkinz - and Preston was helping her with it online....I am thinking he might be a little bit of an addict? It was a fun evening, and happily it only took us 15 minutes to get home this time as opposed to an hour in the blizzard on Christmas eve!

Saturday was 4-H county club day. Mallory, Madison and Colin were all in the club's line dance group this year. They danced really well, and ended up getting top purple. They will be dancing again at regionals in a few weeks. They have worked really hard and I am very proud. They did a much harder dance this year, and it turned out really great! The dedication and practices have been pretty demanding, so it was great to see them do so well!

Madison was also on a gavel games team, and they also got a top purple. They will be working hard before regionals to get their program a little longer! They had 30 minutes - their program consisted of a lot of parliamentary procedures, but they were all squeezed into about 7 or 8 minutes!

I mentioned that Jim took the kids to the circus. Even though I didn't attend with them, I think I have heard enough to say that they had a great time! Jim's grandpa was a Shriner, and when he was alive, he always sent the kids tickets to the circus. We hadn't been for a couple of years, and I thought maybe some of the older kids would have outgrown the desire to go....but I was once again wrong! They all had great memories of circuses past, and all came home with a new favorite part. I didn't think I would ever get Quincy into bed last night, she was so excited telling me all about everything she saw, and got to do! Apparently her knack for meeting people paid off when the guy in front of them felt sorry for her and bought her some cotton candy!

Preston, Quincy and Cam also rode an elephant...Quincy reported to me that this makes your rear end hurt.

I am so happy to see that March is here tomorrow! Madison starts track practices next week, so I am saying that these things mean that spring is here. I am sure that we are in for warmer weather, green grass, time outside, track meets, and starting baseball practices. I couldn't be happier!!

Why I love this man...

Tonight Jim took all 6 of our older kids out to dinner and then to the circus and gave me a night at home, controlling the remote control and rocking our baby. It was delightful!

To say that this was a sacrifice is beyond an understatement considering that there was a KSU game on tv - which I watched all by myself!

Thanks daddy!

insanity factory

I have decided that my house is a factory of insanity. This would be part of the newest line of photos of Miss Harper - by the famous photographer Mallory - complete in her bikini top belonging to Quincy over her pj's with a headband? Really? This poor baby!

A few weeks ago when taking the boys to religion ed I hit a dog. I felt really bad, but when I got turned around to go try to see whose dog it was, it was gone. This week when going to pick the boys up from their RE class, I saw 4 deer on the road. Luckily, I didn't hit any this time!

I was also posting about lent recently and how I had not gotten off to a great start. Well, today I am picking up some beef we ordered - on a Friday. Luckily, I remembered it was Friday, so I am not planning to cook any! Cameron has decided to give up chocolate for lent this year. I have been very proud of him...this family likes chocolate! Girl Scout cookies are in and surprisingly, every single box I ordered contained some sort of chocolate! Sacrifice!

The weekend is looking a little bit on the nutty side, but I will post more about that later if I survive it all!

Mid way

This week has been an exciting one - OK I lied, it has been a run-around, accomplish little, lose days, more bad weather, not sure where the time has gone again week. Saturday night we attended the 4-H BINGO night, and even though I had every intention of winning a processed hog, it wasn't meant to be...instead I won a wonderful coffee mug and some coupons to Chili's. Sunday, I planned to go to mass and then go watch Colin wrestle. Actually, it was the first time that we could all go to a tournament as a family and cheer him on. BUT, we had a pretty good amount of ice on Saturday night, and I didn't feel safe driving all of us around, so we stayed home from church and I figured we would skip wrestling as well, but Jim decided that the roads would be ok if they drove slowly, so he took Colin. Colin got 3rd place. He has been wrestling a lot of the same kids week after week. There is a girl in his weight class that is a tremendous wrestler - she placed at nationals last year. She has been giving him fits this year. He was really excited when he got home because even though she beat him again, this time he avoided being pinned by her and she only won in points. Progress??!!??

I took my mom to the hospital to have a little procedure done on Monday. One thing I have learned about hospitals is that they don't get in any hurry (unless you are in labor and supposed to have a c-section). We were there for a pretty good chunk of the day, and I had taken Harper and Quincy with me. Harper was good - Quincy was good too (wink wink). Quincy does not wait well. Patience is not her virtue. She quickly grew tired of "riding" my mom's hospital bed, watching tv, and coloring. To ask her to play with the tremendous amount of toys she brought was out of the question! Luckily, mom wasn't feeling really bad and she was entertained with her antics! While my mom was having her tests etc. done I took Harper to her 2 month checkup. She is up to 12 pounds 6 ounces now! My big girl! She is healthy and all is going well with her - our doctor didn't want to put her on medicine for the reflux just yet, so we are trying some over the counter stuff for her. So far, I have not been impressed! When we were there, I had our doctor look at Quincy as well, since she had been complaining of ear pain. She has another ear infection. This is the 9th one in 2 years, so we will be seeing our old buddy the ear nose and throat doctor to see if he wants to put in tubes! I am not sure how I feel about this, I guess I will wait and see what they can tell me about it. I don't want her to have hearing loss or antibiotic resistance, so I think we are at a point that we will not have a choice.

Mallory and Madison report to me that they are going to get to pick out classes for high school this week. I told Jim that they must be geniuses because I am sure that they are entering high school at the age of 7. And wasn't it just a week or so ago that I was picking out classes for MY freshman year? WOW! They are really excited, and seemed to be making rational choices about what classes they should take, what will prepare them for college and all that. I was proud of their thinking skills! Still can't believe they will be in high school, but proud nonetheless! Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't blink, they will all be grown up and my nest will be empty!

Thoughts from the weekend

Cameron played his last 'regular season' game this morning. He still has a tournament coming up, and then he will be done with basketball. Harper was really excited to watch him play!

Cam's team had a rather rough time this morning, and even though they played pretty well, they lost. Cam made several points and got in some tremendous rebounds! We are proud of how much this team has learned this season and how much better they are playing!

Jim has gotten several of the stud walls together and even has some of them up. His progress came to a screeching halt though, as he caught the flu that the rest of us had this week. He is feeling a little better. So far, I haven't helped him at all other than carrying some of the wood into the basement. He has a new assistant it would seem, as Colin has taken a real interest in helping, and they seem to work pretty well together. We are going to have a lot of junk to clean out of the basement before we can move anyone down there though! Colin is hoping that dad will be feeling good enough to work some this afternoon and evening - he is excited about getting a bigger bedroom!

Colin is wrestling tomorrow in a tournament in Topeka. I am excited because it is an afternoon tourney and since Cam played today and he wrestles tomorrow, Jim and I can attend both things. Neither Jim nor I like missing out on the kids events!

Tonight we are attending a BINGO night for the 4-H livestock auction fundraiser. The grand prize is a processed hog. I am hoping that I can win that! Of course, I am not so lucky with that type of stuff, so I guess just knowing our money will be helping the 4-Hers is enough! I guess the bonus is that I don't have to cook dinner! Still, a nice ham and some pork chops sound pretty darn good!!! It is getting close to time to start thinking about baby pigs to raise too, and this has got me to thinking about that. I look forward to that because it means that spring, and warmer weather must be around the corner!