It's All About You A1

Dear A1,

13, wow how can that be!, years ago today, you were born and my life has been beyond blessed since. If you could have chosen a mommy to be born to, I’m guessing the 19-year-old emotionally unstable Me would not have been your first choice, but because I became a Mom on that day, I left many parts of that person behind, making me a much better mother for you, and now for your brother. I’m sorry that we weren't the “perfect” family for all those years but I’m so proud of how you adapted. I'm also sorry for you that there is a part of you that has been missing for all these years. You and I share a special bond that nothing or no one can ever break. The day you were born, the life I was destined to live began.

At every point in your life, I've had people - friends, family, even strangers - make a point to tell me how fantastic of a kid you are, and I always say the same thing: I can't take full credit for it, he was born that way. Because you truly were. You were a laid-back baby who rarely fussed, you never really went through the terrible twos, and you’ve always been respectful and polite. I know a lot of people think that makes me a good Mom, but I always feel like that takes a lot of the credit away from you. You are simply an amazing person. For what it's worth, I think I’m a decent Mom, but that is not why you are amazing. You simply are. You are mature way beyond your 13 years and have always been that way.

You have always been the one who feels bad for the kids that get picked on. You want to protect those who can’t protect themselves, especially your brother. You are kind. You are sensitive. And you are really damn funny. Everyone is amazed by how good you are with A2. Where I am happy with it - it doesn’t amaze me - because I expected nothing less. You’ve always been good with kids smaller than you, they always seem to like you, and the love you have for your brother shows with every second you spend with him.

The fact that you two will be close means so much to me because I never had a brother or sister of my own to turn to for support and that was tough because while growing up, I really could have used one. The fact that you and he will have that resource in each other forever, makes me beyond happy. He looks up to you and you have so much to teach him. I feel bad that there is such an age gap between the two of you sometimes but on the other hand I think that is what makes your relationship so special.

Honey- as you get older - we argue over more and more....and more things. You want a cell phone, I want you to hang up your towel. You want to stay up all hours of the night, I want you to go to sleep already! You want to play endless amounts of board games, I have to clean the house and can’t always do it with you. I am glad to see you developing your own taste in books, movies, and especially music. Where I’m totally thrilled is when they overlap mine (Desperate Housewives, Big Brother, The Beatles) and am also happy when they don’t (Akon, Stargate, Avril Lavigne) because it’s proof you are developing into a unique person, away from me.

When I have to tell you “no” to something you want, it breaks my heart because I want nothing more than to make you happy. I hope you don’t spend too much time sulking over not getting those things, but more importantly, I hope someday you’ll understand and maybe even thank me for it.

Thank you for still being someone I can hang out with. I know it gets harder for you as you get older and I get less cool, but it means so much to me to hear you say I'm the coolest mom ever on some rare occasions. I love sitting around and watching TV together, I love dancing to music with you, I love playing with your brother with you. I hope we continue to do those kind of things together even as you get older, but I understand if they fade away. I mean, I think I’m totally awesome, but some day, I’m sure you won’t see that. Just promise me that when I call you, you'll actually pick up and not let me roll to voice mail on purpose. (If you do, I'll have to spill the beans about your affection for Max and Ruby, I'll totally do it too!)

But until then - I’ll savor every moment we have as friends. You are amazing and I hope I never make you doubt that. You have given me gifts in my life I’ll never know how to thank you for. So, I just try to be the best mother I can. I owe you at least that.

Happy Happy Birthday, A1. I love you more than I could ever really say. Heck, I'd give up Dr. Pepper for you and you alone!

Love,
Mom

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Friggin' Dream

No I haven't been up on an all night drinking binge, I gave that up about 13 years ago. My eyes are this hideous shade of red because I managed to eek out about 2.2 hours of sleep last night. Oh that's right you can't see them. Well, take my word for it, it looks like I have a raging case of pink eye minus the disgusting ooze, thank goodness. Last night's 2.2 brings my grand total for the week up to about 12.2 hours. Excuse me while I yawn uncontrollably. I hate when this happens and it's gotten to where it happens more often than not. I really don't have anything to blame it on other than my circadian rhythm being stuck in disco mode. Yippee, for me.

The best thing that comes out of me not being able to sleep at night is that while everybody else is asleep, I can watch as much junk on television that I want without listening to any bitching and moaning about how "stupid" (insert name of show here) is. I've managed to watch seasons three through six of Sex and the City this week with a few episodes of season three of Seinfeld thrown in. I caught up on Big Brother and even managed to read a little bit about what's going on with the live feeds. Right now it's not that interesting because there are too many of them in the house. I like it after four or five have left and the "oh, shit I could be next" factor kicks in. That's some good watchin' right there!

I've almost caught up on Days of our Lives, which is getting a lot better I'm happy to say and I even watched the first four episodes of Real World Reunited on Demand last night. Hey, what can I say, I like to watch junk that doesn't require a lot of thought. Sure there's much better things I could be doing with my time but hey, at three in the morning I'm thinking it's better that I sit quietly in the other room and watch television as opposed to running the vacuum so that everyone else can sleep. I'm thoughtful like that.

I think part of my problem last night was that I had a major case of menstrual cramps (sorry Daddy, you may want to skip this part), my second of the week. Big fun there! I swear, every since I had A2 I've had some crazy cramps. I haven't hurt like this since I first started. Luckily it's not every month but maybe every third month is pure hell on earth. Monday it felt like somebody had sucker punched me in the gut for the better part of the day and last night I felt like I was about to give birth all over again. No amount of Tylenol could even touch it. I considered rummaging through the back of the cabinet where the good stuff like the percocet is kept but decided to forgo the junkie route. It finally subsided at around 3:30 when I decided to wag A2 into bed with me.

Yep, I got him out of his bed, in which he was sound asleep, and schlepped him across the house to my bedroom. I figured I was saving him the trip and plus I felt sorry for him. Since I was watching On Demand last night I stayed in his room watching television instead of going into the playroom across the hall from him where the DVD players are at. I was kicked back in my comfy chair all into my Real World when all of a sudden he started to move around. Since I've slept with this child for the past several months now, I knew what was about to happen. He shifted once and that was fine, but about 10 minutes later the big move came and !SPLAT! right out into the middle of the floor he landed. Naturally it woke him up and he started to cry and had I not been in there to scoop him up immediately, it would have been then that he would have made the journey himself into my room. I hugged him and kissed him and put him back in his bed where he promptly fell back asleep but I still couldn't help feel sorry for him.

I hate the fact that his bed doesn't have a safety rail on it. You'd think it would at least come with a little piece of wood or something that would prevent the inevitable !SPLAT!. I tried to call the company that makes the bed today but their telephone number no longer works and they handle all of their customer service stuff online or through the retailers. In other words, "sorry about your damn luck" as far as getting in touch with someone goes. So now I'm left to my own creative wonderment to come up with a way to rig up a safety rail that will either 1) prevent him from falling out of the bed in the first place or 2) at least make it less harsh when he does take a tumble. Last night when he fell, it wasn't straight down it was more like fall and roll. He landed a good foot and a half away from the bed.

I've been searching for a body pillow that I like to go with his Spongebob theme but haven't had any luck so far. I saw the most awesome Elmo one at K-mart but I don't want to get it because it doesn't really match anything except the Elmo he got for Christmas (yes, he got one of THOSE Elmos). Hubs said I should just make him a body pillow and I'm thinking about doing that and somehow making it to where I can attach it to both sides of the bed with maybe straps that loop around to give him something to roll up against. I'm grasping for straws here. I've posted pictures of his bed before so if you've seen it and have any ideas for me let me know, I'd appreciate it.

Only six more days til my baby turns 13. Man, I'm getting old. Not really, I had him when I was 19, too young to be having one but oh, well! He hasn't been here this week and I've really missed him. I talked to him on the phone a few minutes ago and it just kills me how different he sounds on the phone these days. I miss his little boy voice!

I've definitely sat here too long, I have to get up and go make up beds and do some spot cleaning before the parents come up this weekend to bring my baby home. Plus A2 is watching some silly show that is driving me batty. It's some Big Music Show and they are running through the different types of music right now. Most of it was pretty cute but this zydeco crap is grating my nerves. Lisa Loeb was just on singing this catchy little tune that I'm convinced will be stuck with me for the better part of two days now. Ever heard the song Jenny Jenkins? Well, that's what she was singing and now it's penetrated my brain like some sort of evil earworm. I tried to find her singing it on Youtube but didn't have any luck. I did fine these two singing it though. Some of you may have heard it before, but I haven't until I saw it on this show.



Good luck getting that one out of your head! No wonder I can't sleep at night my brain is too full of useless stuff like this on a continuous loop. Watch the whole thing if you can. It's actually kind of cute.

Roll Jenny Jenkins Roll.

I'm too bleary eyed to check grammar so feel free to point and laugh at any blatant mistakes.

Not Quite 20-20

It's a lazy day, as usual, around here and A2 and I are just hanging out watching a little Fairly Odd Parents, playing around on the Internet, and playing with Mr. Potato Head. Not quite sure what it was that made him do this but A2 decided Potato Head's glasses would look way cooler on himself. I was reading one of my favorite blawgs when he came up to me and swacked me on the legs to get me to look at his cool new specs. I couldn't help but laugh.



Good thing my camera was where I could grab it quick. Move over Carrot Top, I'm starting to see prop comedy in this child's future.

By the way, we miss you A1!!

Spongebob Party-pants Birthday

I made this! It took me forever to do it but I made this for A2's birthday party we had on Saturday at his grandparents house. He had such a good time. He followed his grandaddy around just about all day while we were getting everything ready. His Nana did a wonderful job of getting all the food ready and she bought him another cake that was decorated with Patrick and Spongebob on it. It was a small party with his great grandparents and great aunts and uncles and one cousin. Everyone ate burgers and hot dogs that his grandaddy cooked and then we all had cake and ice cream.

He opened his gifts and loved each and every one of them. His grandparents got him a Spiderman four-wheeler, which was a huge hit with him. He got cars and a car carrier from his brother and from his great grandparents he got a car set and an outfit, he got a Silly Suitcase Potatohead with over 40 parts from his great aunt F and uncle J (awesome gift, we LOVE Potatohead around here, it's the greatest.toy.ever. I have two giant ones of my very own.), some money from another great uncle R and great aunt C that also sent some toys for the pool/tub, and he got a chair and the cutest outfit (that he has had on for two days now) ever from his other great aunt D and uncle W. He was tickled with everything he opened.

On Sunday we took him to celebrate with Hubs family. His uncle M and aunt T had a cookout out there. He had a fun time swimming out there and jumping on the trampoline. And guess what he got from them? Another four-wheeler.

Yep, he has two now. What are the odds of getting the same gift from two different people like that? If it were a small gift I would understand maybe getting two but this isn't something small per se. I guess we will end up having to take one of them back and that really stinks because both groups put a lot of thought into their gifts and it kind of burst their bubble to learn it was a duplicate. Oh well, we'll figure something out. All in all the weekend was amazing for A2, he played so hard and had so much fun. Now we have to get ready for A1's birthday on the 19th. He said he doesn't was a huge fuss made over him just something small. We'll see. It's not everyday your baby turns 13 (thank goodness).

Now we are home, minus A1 who stayed with his grandparents for the week, and it looks like a toy fair exploded in my living room. A2 has been up playing with all of his new toys and taking turns riding on each of his four-wheelers and catching up on his Spongebob. I'll have to wrangle the TV away from him here in a little bit because I have to have my Big Brother fix. I didn't get to watch last night or read anything at all about it all weekend. I'm about to go into DTs. Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate this weekend. You guys rock! And if you couldn't make it, that's OK, I think I ate enough friggin' cake to make up for each one of you.

Happy Birthday A2

Dear A2,

Today is your birthday and while I look at your sweet face, it makes me melt. How can it be two years already that have gone by since we were blessed with your arrival? There is nothing in this world any of us wouldn't do to ensure your happiness. You have brought a new joy into our family that words can not express. Your big brother begged for you for years and my only regret is that you and A1 aren't a little bit closer in age. Your personality is one of a kind and gives you your charm. I love that you are such a happy little boy who loves to laugh and make others laugh along with you. Your smile warms my heart and brings tears of joy to my eyes.

From the bottom of my heart sweet baby boy, I wish for you comfort on difficult days, smiles when sadness intrudes, rainbows to follow the clouds, laughter to kiss your lips, sunsets to warm your heart, hugs when spirits sag, beauty for your eyes to see, friendships to brighten your being, faith so that you can believe, confidence for when you doubt, courage to know yourself, patience to accept the truth and love to complete your life.

Listen to your brother. Learn from him. He is a bright light and loves you with every ounce of his being. He is a shining example and wouldn't steer you wrong. Listen to your father. Learn from him. I can see pieces of him in you. He has so much to teach you that he learned from his own father. You never got to meet your Dad's father but he knew about you before he went to be with Jesus. The thought of you brought him comfort in a difficult time. I'm not the perfect mom, you can ask A1 about that, but I don't think I've done anything that will scar him for life and I can only hope I can say the same for you when you are his age. I had to grow up a lot and learn as I went with your brother and because of that, I bring a different game to the plate with you. The only thing that remains the absolute same with the two of you is my love.

I don't know what your little hands will do or where your little feet will carry you but I pray that your little heart is filled with the knowledge of how much we adore you now and forever.

Happy Birthday A2. May your day be filled with all the disco music, cupcakes, Dr. Pepper, Spongebob and M&Ms you can stand. I love you because you're you!

Love,

Mama

Where Did The Time Go?

It's hard to believe that two years ago today I was nervous as a cat and scared of what the next day held in store. Tomorrow is A2's second birthday and it's hard for me to process that. It seems like yesterday I was still in my nesting phase and organizing every cabinet and sock drawer in my whole house. I was full of nervous energy I guess. Because I had A1 by Cesarean, I was given the option of having A2 that way as well. Since I was terrified of giving birth naturally, I jumped at the chance of a scheduled birth. The hospital had originally wanted me to go in on July 5th but I didn't really like that date. I called and begged for July 7 so he could have a 7-7 birthday and I had thought ahead to the fact that when he turned two it would be on 7-7-7. They happily agreed. How cool is that, that I got to pick his birthday?

That night, since we lived four hours from my parents at the time, they and my sister came down to spend the night with me and Hubs and A1 so that they could go with us to the hospital. A1 was so excited and so scared at the same time. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. He had wanted a brother or sister for so many years and "tomorrow" he was going to finally have one. He was like a little mother hen to me. He constantly asked if I needed anything or if I was feeling OK. Hubs was in a state of shock I think. He wasn't sure what to do or say.

Once my family got there things seemed to settle down just a little bit. We all went out to eat and I ate my last meal before I was going to have to eat hospital food for about two or so days. They took me out for steak and a potato and desert and I gobbled down every single bite. I'm sure if you look hard enough you can still see it on my ass somewhere.

That night it was hard for any of us to fall asleep because the next morning bright and early we all had to get up and go to the hospital. I had to be there at about 6 or 7 because he was scheduled to be born at around 9. I don't remember falling asleep but I did. It felt like I had just closed my eyes though when Hubs woke me up telling me it was time to go.

We all arrived and I broke down in the elevator. My whole body was shaking. I was so scared. Hubs and the nurse that was doing my pre-op work were great though, they got me calmed down. I went through all the pre stuff they do and I was stuck in a room hooked to a monitor. Nobody really knew what to do or expect next. My sister had to stay in a separate waiting room because my nephew wasn't old enough to come up to the room I was in. As it got closer and closer to 9 I was getting more and more anxious. The hospital had some unexpected births come in that morning and they didn't have an operating room for me. I had to wait. And wait. And wait.

My mom was there and she was trying to keep me calm and joked with me about how different this one was from A1. The doctor had freaked us all out with him and made us think I was about to deliver twins because he froze a picture on the ultrasound and then pulled it up again live. She was with me every step of the way during his birth though. She held my arms down when I was freaking out on the operating table and watched them take him out of me. I was a little disappointed that she wasn't going to be able to go in the room with me this time. They only allowed one person at this hospital. Hubs wasn't willing to give up his spot. I don't know when they got there but Hubs parents and grandmother had arrived and were all waiting as well.

Somewhere around 10:30 or so they finally came to get me for my epidural. I got kisses from everyone in the room and was off. Hubs watched from the window as they numbed me. As soon as they put me back on the table though, he was able to come in. I could feel him shaking as he put his hand on me to reassure me everything was going to be fine. My doctor came in and started. I could feel everything that was going on and was surprisingly calm through the whole thing. I had switched my worry to Hubs who was in awe of what was going on. I wasn't sure if he was going to make it though the whole thing or pass out on the floor. I could hear the camera clicking and saw the flashes but he wasn't looking at what he was taking pictures of. He was holding it up over the sheet and clicking. The minute A2 came out though I felt a wave of emotion rush over me and knew Hubs felt it too. They told me he was perfect and I heard his little cry for the first time. Hubs cut the chord and hovered (literally) over the nurses as they checked him over. They wrapped him and gave him to his Daddy who brought him over for me to see. He was beautiful.

They finished up with me and we all went back to the room where our family was waiting anxiously. As soon as they saw us they all couldn't wait to hear about our little man and hold him. My Daddy was beside himself and truth be told, if given the chance he would have taken the baby and not let anyone else hold him. I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to grab the baby while the others were taking their turn. A1 instantly fell in love with his little brother and I'm positive A2 did too. I can still see A1 holding A2 for the first time. Once he was passed around to everyone they had to put him under a lamp to keep him warm until a nurse could come in and bathe him. During that time everyone was instructed not to touch him. A1 and Hubs didn't listen so well to that. They stood over him the entire time touching and looking him over.

A2 was born on July 7, 2005 at 11:06 a.m. He was 18 and a quarter inches long and weighed 7 pounds even. Of course because I was as big as a house, I expected a baby to come out of there the size of a toddler but he was a smaller baby than his brother. I think I gained about 40 pounds with A2 and only about 15 with A1 and he weighed 8.4 and was 21 inches long. Big difference.

It's nice to be able to sit here and remember what it was like the day before he came into our lives. I still feel all the same emotions. It's amazing to sit here and look at him now playing with his firetruck and screaming at the cat. He's growing into such a great little person just like his brother. I am truly blessed to have two wonderful boys.

I could sit here all day and look back over the thousands of pictures that we have taken of him over the past two years but I have a birthday party to get ready for tomorrow. I have laundry to do, bags to pack, and a birthday present to go pick out. I wonder if I could talk Hubs into taking me out for steak and potato tonight for old times sake? It's worth a shot.

OH HAPPY DAY

Guess what I just remembered??!! Tonight is the premiere of this year's summer installment of BIG BROTHER 8! Woo00Hoo00T!
I LOVE this show even more than American Idol. It's my absolute summer addiction. I follow it like a crack whore looking for her next fix. I'm sad to admit I will be spending countless hours watching and reading about every move the people who move into that house make. I'm so jealous of the people who buy the live feeds. I would do it, but if I did, DCS would be here by the end of the summer to take my children away from me and my husband's aorta would burst from bitching about me paying for feeds and not getting two feet from the couch/computer/television.

Did I mention I was excited about this?! I hope you like it too because you can bet your boots I'm'a gonna blawg about it! It's on CBS tonight at 7 central, come on, watch it with me!

Just Because

Just thought I'd share this little gem with you to help brighten your day. Who can look at this and not smile?!!

Musings of a Fat Girl

Because I said I would do it, here's a picture of what I looked like yesterday when we were heading out to play in the swimming pool and on the slip and slide that A2 absolutely loved loved loved! The first is the original picture I posted about three weeks ago and the second, of course, is yesterday. As you can see there isn't any change but I can't really complain about that since I've done nothing about it. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that sitting around and wishing the fat to melt away doesn't work. THAT only took about TWO FREAKING YEARS to sink in! Oh, and don't be fooled into thinking there is a difference between these two pictures. The second one was taken from a further distance and only "seems" to be smaller. Click on it, you'll see I'm just as big as I was before vacation.




May as well be this though!


I have tried to eat better the last few nights. Hubs and I have been eating tuna for supper, yeah I know, super yummy. He eats his plain on crackers (ewww, gross) and I eat mine with a little bit of tuna salad mix that comes in a squeeze bottle. I know it adds extra calories but I can't stomach it plain. We've been picking some little cherry tomatoes out of the garden and I've been eating them too, it helps mask the grossness. I should have worked out yesterday but it was the 4th and all, so playing on the slip and slide and going out to watch fireworks kind of beat out hopping on the treadmill and the Blowflex of Doom. I'm embarrassed to admit that my legs were still a little sore from Monday night too.

I'm definitely going to work out today. Matter of fact, I'm not going to wait til tonight to do it. I'm going to enlist the help of A1 to keep an eye on A2 while I do down there here in about an hour. They can play in the sandbox (see post below) while I sweat my booty off. I've really got a lot of stuff to do here in the house but that can all wait. How is it that you can scrub your ass off on your house but let a holiday or the weekend roll around and it looks like a friggin' tornado ran through it just like that? This time last week my house was sparkling yet today, I can barely see the tops of my kitchen counters!! But I digress, an hour tops will have the house looking good as new and maybe even help burn off a few extra calories! Why couldn't fat be the new skinny!! I'd vote for that.

The Sandbox

Hubs and I made this sandbox for the guys. I saw one of the crab sandboxes at Toys R Us when we were shopping around for a swing set and wanted Hubs to get it for A2. He didn't think it was such a great deal and said that both boys wouldn't be able to play in it at the same time and said he could build one. I wasn't too keen on the idea at first but after he built it I'm happy we didn't buy the crab one now! We went to Wally World and I picked out the four colors for the sides and came home and spray painted them. I then went to a hobby shop and found these stencils and spent about three hours in the blaring sun painting the letters and bugs all around it. I'm pretty proud of our project and the guys love it! The neighbor kids love it too. It's been a big hit all the way around. Just thought I'd share it here. You can click on each of the four pictures to make them open up bigger so you can see it better.

Happy Day Before

Blog? What blog? Who has a blog? Oh, that's right I do! Who has time to blog these days? It seems like there is always something for me to do and never enough time for me to do it all in. Just a quick recap of my weekend: Friday I spent the morning cleaning my baseboards and dusting every piece of furniture in my house. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took two Swiffer duster pads to clean all the furniture, the right way that is. It rained all day long so we didn't get to go to the fair like I had wanted to. We did go out to eat as a family with Friend 1 and her husband and daughter.

I invited Friend 2 but she has three children and said they never take them all out in public at once. She was serious. After we ate we came back here to my sparkling clean house and played Scattergories. It was loads of fun. Hubs and Husband of Friend 1 are usually laid back quiet types but they actually got into it and by the end of the night Husband of Friend 1 had officially annointed himself "judge of all answers".

Saturday Hubs had to work and his motorcycle was "conveniently" delivered to his work that day. Yep, you read that right, he bought a motorcycle. It's a "made in China" one but it's pretty cool. It's small and outfitted with the police lights and siren. He's thinking he wants to sell them to police agencies as a hobby. The retailer told him he'd give him a cut of each bike he sold. I'm just hoping he sells enough to pay for the one he got.

By the time he got home Saturday afternoon and we oohed and aahed over the bike and then went to Sam's and Wal-Mart for our usual weekend grub run Saturday was shot.

Sunday, well, Sunday was an interesting day. My "mother" decided to pay a visit to give A1 and A2 their birthday gifts. (A2 will be 2 on 7-7-7 and A1 will be 13 on 7-19-7, October is a pretty awesome month for me.) It always exhausts me for her to come up for a visit. It's like I'm walking on freaking eggshells just to be around her. The only reason I agree to let her come up here is because A1 thinks she is a hoot and in some way I'm hoping to show him that even though I could give two shits less about her, I'm being the bigger adult for "forgiving" and moving on. He of course doesn't know the whole story with her but knows there isn't the normal "mother/daughter" bond there. You can't help which gene pool you originate from and even if they are truly despicable people your parents are still your parents. She is my case in point.

The good thing about her visits are that she keeps them short. After about an hour and a half she was ready to leave. (Thank the Lord) After she left I had to go to my bedroom and lay down for about 10 minutes to process all the snippy little remarks she rolled out that made me want to jab dull butter knives into her jugular vein. (Hey, I said I was being the bigger person for A1, not you guys!) After that I was done with it and went outside to help Hubs mow the yard.

It's cathartic for me to get on the mower and listen to my iPod while I drive it around. Plus that gave Hubs a chance to get his motorcycle out and show it off to all the kids that were riding their bicycles in the neighborhood. He flashed his lights and bumped the siren for them and they all got a kick out of that.

Yesterday (Monday) was pretty crazy around here. We by that I mean I, didn't really do that much besides pull all the weeds from the landscaping and trim the (outside) hedges but there were five boys in my house almost all day. A1 finally made friends with the neighbor kid down the road that's about 15 and the two boys that just moved into the neighborhood that are 9 and 6 were here. Surprisingly, they were all good together, even with A2 running around wanting to be included some. They played video games and even played outside for a little while. I was just glad to see A1 getting out and being active. He's one that is perfectly content to sit on the couch all day and play on the computer and watch television. Wonder where he got that from??!! I blame anyone else but me.

Today, I've spent most of the day out hunting for Spongebob party supplies. A2 will be celebrating at his grandparents house this weekend with a Spongebob party/cookout. Hubs went and picked up the Spongebob cake pan for me yesterday. Last year I made him a Winnie the Pooh cake. It turned out so-so. I'm going to make him out of a lemon cake with lemon icing and then just use food coloring to decorate his pants and the outlined stuff. I'll take a picture and post it for all two of you that care/read this. If I can dig up the Pooh one from last year I'll post that one too.

I can't believe it will be two years though since my baby was born. It's so sad how freaking fast they grow up. I don't even want to talk about A1's birthday yet, I might cry. He's going to be a teenager and that just seems so strange to me.

Don't have any plans for the 4th yet. We'll probably hunt up a fireworks show around here. Too bad it's right in the middle of the week and not against the weekend. What are your plans? Anything fun or exciting? I promise to not scream at you if you hit the comment button. Although I did get my first SPAMMER last week. It was some freaking comment from Rodrigo(?) and it was in Portuguese saying something about how he liked my blog and wanted me to come to his website that sold T-shirts. I only know what it said because I Googled the entire message and it came up about a thousand times from other people's blogs. It was promptly deleted, but I'll keep yours as long as your nice.

Boring true confession time: I haven't worked out once since before vacation, until last night. I did go play racquetball once with Hubs but that doesn't really count. I've been eating horribly and drinking Cokes like they are going out of style. Yep, I'm a southern girl so any form of carbonated beverage is referred to as a Coke. We found an awesome sale on them at K-mart (Five 12-packs for $11) and since we are "buy in bulk" freaks, we bought in bulk.

Anyway, I've felt terrible about myself for not working out over the past three weeks and not being able to button a pair of short that I could before vacation and couldn't stand it any longer. So, last night I finally made myself go downstairs to work out. Today....I'm sore and that makes me sad because before, I had worked past all of that soreness, so it's as if I'm starting over at square one all over again. I'm making Hubs take pictures tomorrow night for Thursday's post. You've been warned.

What in the crap is it going to take for me to lose this weight? Not allowing my "mother" to come back again will greatly help the situation. After she left.....I ate two Twinkies. Sad I know. I did get a compliment from Hubs last night though, he told me that my back looked good as I was getting out of the shower. I think he was hoping to score. I didn't believe him so he crapped out.

So that's my last couple of days in a nutshell. I'm sitting here snagging some stuff off Limewire as I post. It's been a while since I've gotten anything and I'm almost embarrassed to admit what I'm getting but I'll tell anyway since it's just you guys.......The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack! Can you believe there are several people who have the entire thing on there! Now I will too, W0oo0T!!

I'm listening to "Sweet Transvestite" right now. I just got through the "Time Warp"! Yay, I just found Hot Patootie......{Imagine you hear Meatloaf's voice singing out- "Hot Patootie, bless my soul, I really love that rock and roll"..........oh, sorry, that was really suppose to just stay in my head!} Man, I need to get a life or just make better use of this one!

Happy 4th of July to all of you. May you all eat til your hearts content and enjoy some beautiful fireworks. Stay safe whatever you decide to do!