Category: Blog

10th – Took Lucas to the Sparkles Tiny Tots program for the morning. He rode around on his motorcycle, played ski-ball, and did parachute activities. He also tried out roller skating for the first time.

11th – This was the last week of Lucas’s Little Kickers soccer program. They did a scrimmage (new word for me) and Lucas even got in there (with lots of coaxing) and scored a goal. At the end they got winner medals.

12th – We went to the zoo for Mommy’s Day (moms get in free). It started off a little rough since I got frustrated when we couldn’t find parking and then Lucas was being kinda troublesome, but then things calmed down a bit and we had an enjoyable time. The best part was the lions. I do think, though, that next year I will just send Paul out with the kids and I’ll do a hair and nails day or something.

14th – Lucas’s last day of 3-year-old preschool. They had a great end of the year picnic party. If you ask Lucas about it, he will be sure to tell you we had cupcakes. The whole thing was beach themed and was really cute. We had a picnic on the playground. Hickory Flat UMC was such a great school. Lucas really loved his teachers and going to school. I hope he likes his new school as much when he starts at Brenwood next week.

15th – Back and forth to Acworth today. First for Lucas’s 4yr old doc appt. He aced his hearing test, which means he can HEAR me just fine, he just doesn’t LISTEN to me. He didn’t do very well on the vision test, though, so we will be seeing an ophthalmologist. He was so brave for his shots, so we of course had to visit LoriBell’s for ice cream after. I drove Lucas back home and then turned back around to Acworth for a Girl Scout meeting in the park.

16th – I had a consignment sale drop-off due today. It was for the spring/summer set of clothes which I hadn’t previously done a sale for so it required a complete inventory. I stayed up all night working on it. Okay, it might have gone a little faster if I hadn’t been watching movies while I worked on it. Although it went faster than it could have because of my awesome tag gun that my awesome sister bought me. It wasn’t an online inventory system so I don’t know how much I sold yet, but judging by what came back, I think I made about $75-80 which was more than I was expecting ($25-30) based on the size of the sale.

I’m trying out nail art. In middle school Becky and I used to paint our nails before school all the time. I had every color of the rainbow and did all different colors. Nail art is like the next level. My first attempt was a stair-step trio and my second was ombre.

This May is such a busy month for us! So many birthdays and holidays, festival, events, and appointments.

3rd – We kicked the month off with Lucas’s 4th birthday party at Catch Air. It was soo much fun! Nearly every single one of my friends was able to make it (including Jana from California), the kids got to run around like little nutters, and there were *two* cakes. I just wish I could have spent more time with my friends to chat instead of running around after the kids. Plus we were running over on time so I had to rush through the cake and presents. But that aside, I’m so happy I did it and everyone that was able to join us. Lucas had such a wonderful time and talked about it for days. I love how happy all (three) of his birthdays made him.

4th – The next night Josh threw a surprise party for Allison’s 30th birthday. It ended up being quite a bash. I really enjoyed meeting their friends and family. They are always so much fun.

7th – We did a mini birthday party for Lucas at his preschool class. Since he had a real party I probably wouldn’t have normally done anything at school for his bday, but all the other kids did and I didn’t know if he would get upset if he didn’t have one, too. He never asked about it before hand if he was going to have one, but I didn’t want him to miss out and be disappointed later. And who am I to say no to additional birthday celebrations? He got to wear a birthday crown all day and be the line leader and I brought cupcakes to his class. We all sang to him and then I gave all the kids bubbles.

8th – For his actual borthday I took the kiddles to the aquarium. I thought it might be a big chore to take them both on an outing by myself (I think this may be the first time I have done that), but it turned out easy since they were both so well behaved. Lucas was so excited and ran from tank to tank looking at everything. His favorites were the big crabs, octopus, and the sand shark that came swimming right up near our window. Arianna was just happy to have big spaces to walk around in. She didn’t seem to notice/care about the tanks much but kept checking out all the people instead.

On the way back from the aquarium we met Dad for dinner at Cherokee Cattle Co for dinner. We got cake for dessert; Lucas got the “crazy cake”  which was a layered  cake of 4 different kinds of cake and covered in sprinkles. The restaurant staff came out and sang happy birthday to him, which made him smile like this: 

to be continued…

mar 17

I’m going to need a genealogy chart to keep track of Once Upon a Time

I love how on cougar town they take a vaca to target. i had a target vaca today

I’m watching this autotrader.com commercial of these cars racing through blood vessels, but all i can think of is sperm racing through to an egg

mar 19

it makes me so frustrated that dishes have to be washed every day

Lucas is singing a song that goes, “who loves cookies? i love cookies?”

Lucas said I’m not a leprechaun “you’re my mommy and i love you”

mar 21

i discovered today that Arianna can drink out of a straw.  i was trying to shop at target and Arianna was being pissy about everything and then smacked a cup of milk out of my hand that spilled all over the cart and she kept yelling at me and ruined my shopping trip. so now im making myself feel better by shopping online

mar 23

i hate when i read/see something that is touching or heartbreaking involving children and i just get this huge to go scoop up one of my kids and hug them so tightly, but they are fast asleep and i can’t disturb them over my hormones.

i also hate when my cat pees right up against the side of the litterbox so that i have to scrape it off instead of easily scoop it out.

my little sister is 29 years old today. when did we get so old?

today mom took Lucas to a bounce house all day so it was just Ari and me. one kid at a time is soo much easier. then mom went home and we went to Johnny’s Pizza w/ the Boltons. then they came back to our house and we dyed Easter eggs. it was a great day. i hope tomorrow is as good and it doesn’t rain out all our activities. the past two days have been so busy and I’m left so exhausted that i feel like it should be Sunday night instead of only saturday. i really really don’t know how single moms do it.

mar 29

lucas loves taking pictures. he uses my camera, our phones, and his toy camera. when he takes your picture he tells you, “say burger cheese!”

every.single.time i use the kitchen sink sprayer, i get water all over the cabinets and myself

Arianna had her 12 month appt today (a month late) and is a little anemic. she has to take some iron pills and we need to cut back on how much milk she drinks. he didnt act like it was a huge deal. she was a 9.7 anf the minumum # was 10 so i guess not too bad

mar 30

i went to Target tonight. Oh how I love Target.  There is so much there that I would love to buy. Tonight’s discovery: http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Price-Little-People-Disney-Princess/dp/B007HVHDCI

my neurotic reaction as well. i literally have to sit there and remind myself in my head that it is OKAY if he mixes the colors – he is having fun

I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed this month. There is so much going on and some things are slipping through the cracks. Here is what is bouncing around in my brain like Lucas’s rubber bouncy balls:

• Arianna’s first birthday: Planning, finding the cheapest decorations, ordering a cake…it actually is taking a lot of online research time. I have a whole Pinterest folder for that stuff I find.
• As part of my New Year goal of keeping the house clean, and most importantly because of the party, I’ve been doing a whole house clean which takes a lot of my time. I like having it clean.
• Wedding: dress alterations, undergarments, accessories, hair styles, travel plans. Currently I’m calling secondhand stores trying to locate a tux for Lucas and I need to go pick up my dress down in Roswell
• the fact that I’m going to Roswell makes me want to look into other stuff to take care of while I am there. Do they have a Goodwill because I need a new purse. I noticed a Hobby Lobby…I should make a list of stuff I need…what consignment shops are down there. Lots to figure out just to go get dress.
• Lowes: I’m working on Lucas’s playroom. I want to paint it sparkly blue, but they didn’t have the glitter in the store or the shelving stuff I orig wanted. I had to order the glitter which they have one packet for me to go get and one that will come in in about a week. I still have a lot of shelving research to do to find what I want at a good price (it is actually really complicated!)
• Valentines Day: I need to find a preschool valentines craft for Lucas
• Preschool: speaking of preschool, I’ve been spending a ton of time online trying to figure out all the preschool stuff. I did get him on the list for one down the street, but I’m not sure if I’m happy with it until I go see it, plus I need to get them the paperwork. So I’ll need to go tour at least one preschool.
• Cookies: It is cookie month at Girl Scouts (plus the regular meetings). Luckily I don’t have to do too much planning for the cookies, just the meetings. But I will have to attend a bunch of booths.

All this stuff is constantly on my mind and requires online research, phone calls, and errands. It all sounds very negative, but they are things I am excited about and enjoy doing…I just wish it wasn’t so much at once.

Here, have a random picture:

I’ve only read one post from this blogger, , but it cracked me up, especially when reading some of the comments, too. My favorite quote from the post, though, was “I mostly had the right ingredients.” This is wonderful because this is half the reason so many of my own cooking creations fail. For her, it worked. For me, it rarely does. When you end up substituting half the recipe…you kinda get a whole new monster. My other favorite part of this post was a rude commenter from Paul’s soul-twin that said, “I’m at a loss for why you continually find it so incredibly difficult to follow directions made easy enough for a preschooler.”

Today we did a family + Dad outing to the Southern Museum of Locomotive History for the Trains, Trains, Trains event.

They had a bunch of model railway clubs come out and set up model train sets everywhere and the kids could operate the trains.

Mr Ken from the Early Childhood Education department had a cute train craft for the kids to do.

It is Day 16 of the new year and I’m still going strong on my new cleaning regime. I know that it is still really early in the year, but I’m excited about it. I’m enjoying reading blogs like Organizing Homelife and Clean Mama to get ideas and motivation.

I went to the Container Store the other day with Mom. It was my first time going in there and oh..my..gosh that place is heaven in a store for a person like me. I wish I had one near me (closest one is 50 minutes away) so I could shop there every week. I bought an Elfa door system to hang up my gift wrapping stuff. It was $60 which is a lot, but I liked it better than the cheaper versions that had to be screwed into the door. the gift wrapping stuff was all over the place in my storage closet and I’m very excited about my new, neat area. I also request that any future gifts to my family arrive wrapped and not in a gift bag because i have SO MANY gift bags and tissue paper. I got the idea via Pinterest.

I got a squeegee for doing windows and mirrors today in the mail. I was trying it out and Lucas asked what that noise was. I said I was playing with my new toy. He informed me grownups didn’t have toys. I’m impressed with the ease of use of cleaning the windows with the squeegee instead of 20 paper towels and elbow grease.

One of my problem areas was this kitchen counter. I would use it as a catch-all way station for stuff that needed to be put away elsewhere in the house.

I got these nice little baskets at Michaels to put up on the counter as a stuff depository. One for each level of the house, I can sort stuff in them as I go and then take the whole basket with me to put away items which keeps my counter top clear.

For 2013, most of my goals are the same as they have been the past few years. I’d say I typically only ever accomplish 1/3 of what I set out to do. So maybe my first goal should be to complete my goals? ;P

1. Get on a daily schedule to be more productive. Instead of just a To Do list, I need to really start budgeting my time so that I stop wasting away hours looking at Pinterest and reading blogs.

2. Be healthier (a multi-part goal):

• Exercise more often: exercise at least 4 days a week
• Go to bed earlier. no staying up past midnight, Cinderella!
• Stick to myfooddiary.com
• Kick that coke addiction, just say no!
• lose weight!

3. Try to read a book to Lucas every day

4. Modern Housewife Extraordinaire: get the house organized and stay on top of cleaning

5. Read at least one educational book. Yeah, I’m probably the second biggest consumer of books of anyone I know. This goal is to read about something that doesn’t have fangs.

6. Set aside time to work on my hobbies like scrapbooking and writing. Get Europe 2010 and Arianna, Year 1 scrapbooks completed.

7. Spend more time actually doing all those projects I’m Pinning for Lucas.

8. Cut my debt in half.