ally-cat

(8/12) Lucas finally got better over the weekend and then this evening Arianna got so sick! Yargh.

I have a bagel addiction.

#SwitchedatBirth is really annoying me tonight. I dont like the decisions they are making with taking the baby and trying to get Ty to skip out on the army. Ok nevermind they fixed that part. And Nikki is a self-righteous &@$€£!+*> Actually this whole episode is awful.

I’ve killed another phone (the old iphone) although that thing was limping along anyhow. So for now im back to my backup phone.

Today was Lucas’s first day of school (a week late due to being sick). It got off to a rough start because he thought he was going to have this one boy in his class and it turned out he didnt. Im not sure how much of his being upset was really about that and how much was just reacting to newness (and he woke up cranky today). But upon pickup I got great reports from his teacher Ms Pam and from Lucas himself.

I think I’m going to go read a book.

Week 1

(08/08) I’ve been irritable the past couple of days. My sleep schedule is messed up because of Lucas getting up so much during the night when he was sick and because of Paul being at work every day. Our whole routine is thrown off, and with little kids, routine is everything. We’re stuck in the house because Lucas has Hand, Foot, and Mouth….a virus that causes a rash all over like chicken pox. I hadn’t heard of it before but when I posted about it on Facebook a lot of my friends’ kids had had it before.

At 17 months old I’ve caved and Arianna is watching TV all the time now (they’re not supposed to watch TV until age 2). So, yeah I’m whiny and cranky this week from all that is going on in a not fun way.

Our month so far:

Aug 1 – Mommy’s birthday! The kiddles and I met Mom for lunch at Frosty Frog (a sandwich/ice cream place). We gave her flowers and a balloon and we had ice cream for dessert.

Aug 2 – Lucas’s Pre-K orientation. We met his teachers and he has 4 other little boys in his class that he already knows. I’m really glad I had him do daycare at the school over the summer because even though it is a different room with different teachers, he jumped right in and started playing with the other kids. Of course, he already that outgoing friendly personality (he definitely doesn’t get it from his super-shy mommy).

Aug 2-3 First consignment sale of the season. It went incredibly well, the best I’ve had so far. I spent a little over $200 on new fall and winter wardrobes for the kiddles and earned $126 in sales. This one was the huge Born Again Blessings at the Civic Center.

Aug 4/6 – Lucas got sick with what we found out a few days later was the HFM thing I was talking about above which brought all my plans and activities to a screeching halt, including Lucas’s 1st day of school and starting PreK. Dr Kola said it would be a week or so for him to be all better. So basically Lucas will be all better just in time for Paul to have major surgery.

Not much else to report right now since most of activities for this week got cancelled and we are just sitting in the house doing nothing. Next week is Paul’s Total Hip Replacement surgery.

For the most part, June consisted of lessons. Mondays and Wednesdays Lucas had swim lessons at the new Aquatic Center. He has a great teacher and has gone from getting upset every time water splashes in his face to voluntarily dunking under the water. He has also done a 3 second solo swim. He graduated from Preschool 1 to Preschool 2 which he will start this month (August). He also did gymnastics June-July at Georgia All Stars from a LivingSocial coupon I had. I’m glad I had a discount on that program, because I didn’t care for that place at all. I’m going to try out another place called Zenit, and they have classes for Arianna’s age, too.

On the 3rd we released the Painted Lady Butterflies that we had raised from Lucas’s birthday kit.

The water park at the new aquatic center is really awesome. It has a playground part that is wonderful for the kids to run around on, a small deep end area for a bit of swimming, a lazy river, and water slides. It is like a close by, cheap, mini-white water. It took Arianna a little time to warm up to it, but Lucas loovveedd it.

Lauren’s baby shower was the 22nd for Miss Alexis Elizabeth. We had it at Chilis which I hadn’t been to in years and we did presents and cake! It was really fun to hang out with everybody and she got some really adorable little girl stuff.

For our 7th (12th) anniversary, Paul and I went to a movie theatre in Alpharetta where you sit in office chair style chairs and have little tables and they serve you drinks and dinner while you watch the movie. It was a neat experience, but we probably wouldn’t do it frequently. We got to see Superman and it was *awesome*.

We had a really rainy (and busy) summer, so we only made it to the pool a couple of times. Here are some shots of us hanging out.

We ended the month with a trip to the zoo with the Steins! We hardly ever get to see them anymore so it was really great to go do something with them.

So it is August and I never finished these posts. Here they are finally.

17 – Landon’s 4th birthday party – We went to the Keelings’ and had these awesome cookie-brownie combo things. Landon got a massive water gun for his birthday and the kids all played out in the front yard with the water guns until late.

18 – We took Lucas to the Renaissance Festival for the first time! I love Ren Fest and was so excited to take him. He and I went through a maze with him leading the way. He likes to do the drawing kind and thought it was pretty neat to go through a real one. It ends with you climbing a small tower and then sliding out. The lady working the ticket booth for the maze kept telling me how hot my husband is when I went to pay for the tickets to the maze ;). We also went in the bird sanctuary which I hadn’t been into before. Lucas was a little nervous about the loud squawking cranky parrots but thought it was neat when the cockatoo said bye to us when we left. We also watching the joust and Lucas rode on several of the (incredibly overpriced) rides. We ended with the children’s play area and petting zoo. Arianna loved the bubble machine.

21 – Marietta art class – They read a story about a cat and created their own cats. This was 100% made by Lucas. I verbally told him how to draw the mouth and things and he made all the parts including drawing them and cutting them out. We also went to the eye doctor this day and Lucas definitely has the strabismus eye thing that Paul had. He got glasses to strengthen his eyesight in his right eye.

22 – The neighborhood had an ice cream social where an ice cream truck comes to the pool and passes out free ice cream. Lucas and I went over there with the Keelings and the kids ran around hyped up on sugar. I also met one of my other neighbors, Barbara and her daughter Katherine that live down the street from us.

23 – Southern Museum Mommy & Me class –

We had a brief break between schools so I had a chance to take him to the class the Southern Museum has each week. It’s such a great class because they read a book, play a game, sing, do a craft, and do hands on activities like pictured below. It is really well structured and taught. This week’s theme was taking care of pets.

24 – 26 Paul goes to Nationals and I’m home with the kids. Not much to say about that. Mom helped a bunch so that I wasn’t overwhelmed.

28 – Lucas started daycare at his new school Brenwood Academy. We call it “playschool,” though since the word “daycare” has a stigma to it for Lucas. It took a few minutes to get him started playing with something and settled in, but then he was fine. He goes Tues, Weds, Thurs from 9-12.

29 – We had our last Girl Scout meeting of the year. I decided to have an informal meeting at LoriBell’s for ice cream and chatting. Lucas got to come, too, and he and Deb told “jokes” the whole time which basically consisted of saying random silly stuff and then cracking up laughing at it. Lucas had also just gotten his new glasses that day so he got to show them off to everyone.

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: