Poor Mike!

We had a little storm come through the neighborhood this evening. I was trying to nap on the couch when I started to hear the thunder rumble off in the distance. I figured it would be a quick thunderstorm like we ususally get. I was just about asleep when Mike came in and told me about this...



We have 3 big trees down out by the garden. This one barely missed our barn, but as you can see, Mike's truck wasn't so lucky. There are three more ready to go that would land on our kennel fence so we need to get them down asap.



Poor Mike. He loved that old truck. The whole back end is bent up. It isn't worth fixing. We just had a new transmission put in that thing too. Figures.

While I was out taking pictures of the truck disaster I decided to get one of the flower bed that Mom and Jim helped us put in last time they were here. I wanted Mom to be able to see how much everything has grown. Next year I hope to get some more stuff in this thing but for now I think It is looking pretty good.

Nominated!! Woohoo!

I've been nominated by Katie! Thanks, Katie, you rock too! I am supposed to nominate 5 people so here goes...

Patti--Because she always has encouraging comments for me and an adorable little girl.

Tommiea--Because she keeps her husband in touch with his family when he is so far away.

FlipFlopGoddess--because she has great taste in music!

An Island Life--Because I love her stories about her passengers on her flights and she knows where all the good contests are!

KimmyK--Because she is a brand new mommy and isn't afraid to admit it is hard and scary at times.

and...

I'm going to go ahead and nominateAJ too, just because she rocks and she is my niece even though she doesn't blog very often.

So there ya have it. Sorry if you have already been nominated. I guess that just means you really rock!

Not In My House!

I don't really know what I would title this post anyway. Yesterday I read an email from my next door neighbor about finding a snake in her flower bed while pulling weeds. Normally this would not bother me but after finding the scorpion in the bathroom and then reading how this snake was actually striking at her, I am now afraid to go outside. I'm dreaming about spiders, snakes, and scorpions. I think last year we didn't have any of these problems because our house was brand new and the yard and landscaping was brand new so nothing had moved in yet. I'm going to be calling exterminators this afternoon. I want the house treated for bugs INCLUDING scorpions (apparently that is something different). I don't know what I can do about snakes, but if there is something I will find out and do it. I even saw a bunch of bats flying around off my deck the other night. I feel like I've moved to the Amazon!

It doesn't help ease my mind any that when I email Mike at work to tell him about the scorpion in the bathroom, his response back was did I take a picture and how big was it? Who cares how big it was it was a friggin scorpion! IN MY BATHROOM! Then he asked me if I ate it. WTH? This is not the response I want from him. I want him to tell me he is going to take care of it. That I shouldn't spend another second worrying about bugs and scorpions. I should just go back to my blogging, my XBox games, and my soaps, but noooooooo! He doesn't think having scorpions in the bathroom are any big deal apparently. I'm going to go buy a rubber one and put it on his pillow and see if he thinks it is a big deal then. What good is it to have a husband if he isn't going to take care of "bug issues"? Geesh!

I am now going to try to move on from the scorpion in my bathroom and talk about something else. I can't promise I won't mention the little bugger again though.

My mom and Jim are coming to visit in a few weeks. Jayke can't wait. He calls her everyday to ask her when she is coming. I'm excited because they are actually going to stay a whole week and we are goign to rent a boat. We are also going to go up to the mountains and mess around up there for a day. We are goign to take Jayke to Monkey Joe's and I want to take them to Greenville to show them the park and the falls I talk about all the time. We are going to go to Abbeville to look aroound and tour the plantation home there. All of these are things I've been wanting to do so I'm excited! I need something to look forward to and keep me going. Now that I have my FREE Greenville phonebook I can look up some new places to go eat too.

I will be busy cleaning out closets and redoing some of my decorating before they come. I feel like I need to do it everytime anyone comes. It is my own form of OCD. The scorpion got me on a closet cleaning kick so I'm just gonna roll with it.
I may even paint another room.

I'm here AJ! I have just had a busy weekend. Okay, really only Saturday was busy, but I was busy sleeping all day yesterday. Saturday we went to a party with all the management level guys from Mike's work. This was a first for me. I actually only know two people from Mike's work and he never talks about it so it was interesting. Very informative party. Found out, by accident, that Mike got a speeding ticket while driving to Indiana with his boss and another co-worker about a month ago. I guess he felt that since I tried to hide mine from him, he could hide his from me. Turns out neither one of us are very good at hiding things 'cause we both got caught.

Everyone seems nice but it was a little uncomfortable for me because all those people knew each other and were talking about things they had all done together. I also noticed that no one really went out of their way to talk to me. I tried talking to a couple of the wives but they would just answer me and go back to their own conversations. Jaykeb had fun though. The guy who brought Mike to SC has a son a year younger than Jayke and he had a ball playing with him and the bigger kids who were there. It was stinking hot, humid, and sprinkling though and it was at a house on the lake so I was sticky and miserable for a while.

After the party we went out to eat. They only had Korean food at the party and none of us really ate so we were starved. Maybe now we could start doing more with some of the guys Mike works with. There were a couple of the wives who I felt like I could become friends with.

Sunday, like I said, I slept all day. Slept and watched movies with my boys. Mike cooked ribs and they were VERY good. Whatever he did this time he needs to remember it for next time. Then when I was getting ready to go to bed last night I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in the bathroom. A SCORPION was on the wall above the toilet! At first I didn't even know what to do. I was afraid to wake Mike so I just grabbed a huge handful of toilet paper, grabbed the scorpion, and through it in the toilet. I'm surprised Mike didn't wake up because I was shuddering and yelling and slamming things around. I dreamed about scorpions all night then. I'm heading to Lowe's to get bug spray this afternoon. Can't be having scorpions hanging out in the john. I have to go google them now and read up on them so I can give myself further nightmares.

Thank You Bell South!

The 4th of July celebration in Greenville was great! This was our first 4th down here, we were in Indiana visiting last year on the fourth, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did they have fantastic fireworks but they had all kinds of food and drink tents, rides for the kids, live music, and lots of freebies.

Usually that free crap they give away at these things does not interest me in any way but this time they were giving away something that I was very excited about. We got bottles of water, candy, a tote bag with grocery coupons in it, and Jaykeb got several balls. None of this was the exciting part though. What I got that almost made my whole night was a free Greenville phone book! A phone book you ask? Yes! Do you know how much they are to buy them? $50! Okay, $50 is not all that much but it is to buy something that should be free. I've been wanting one for over a year but didn't want to pay $50 for it. I even considered staying in a hotel one night just to be able to steal their phone book. Do I sound cheap? I don't care. I have my FREE phone book now and I've already spent a considerable amount of time reading it. Now I just need to get a map so I can look up the streets things are on. Don't worry, I will just go buy one of those.

Back to the 4th. I was temporarily distracted by my excitement over my FREE phonebook. Sorry 'bout that. We got downtown really early because we had no idea where anything was going to be, where we would be able to park or anything. This worked out really well because we were able to go eat then be first in line to buy our tickets for the food/drink tents and kiddie rides. Jayke went on all the rides and loved them. This year he just ran up to us after getting off one ride, snatched the tickets out of our hands, and took off for the next one. He is going to have so much fun at the fair this year. Getting there that early also allowed us to get the best seat in the house for the show.







We put our chairs in the amphitheatre and had a great view looking out at the treetops on the hilltop across the park. That is where they set the fireworks off from and we had a fantastic view. It felt like they were coming right down on top of us. Jayke loved them. Last year he was afraid but not at all this year.

Before the fireworks Jaykeb found another little boy to play with. They played for a couple of hours, running, playing tag, and coloring.



I was worried we wouldn't have much fun this year. The 4th is always something I look forward to back in Indiana. We are usually with friends and family and this year we wouldn't be. We wouldn't be entertained by the guys trying to blow up the neighbors when their fireworks misfire or trying to blow us up in similar fashion. We had no sparklers or fireworks of our own to light. No home cooked food. No flaming panda bear fireworks to crack us up. What we did have were the best fireworks I've ever seen, great weather, kiddie rides, and a FREE phone book! What more could you ask for?

Bye Bye Bink!

The binky fairy was a success! He was a little upset about not having it when he first went to bed but we started talking about what she might bring him in exchange for his binks and he got so excited about it that he put his head on his pillow and went right to sleep so she could come.

This morning when he got up he ran in to see if she had been here. There was a monster truck waiting for him and the binks were gone. He was very proud of himself, telling both of us how he didn't need his binky at all last night. I'm glad because I was getting darn sick and tired of hunting for that binky all the time. I also couldn't understand him when he would talk with it in his mouth. Good bye binky! I'm glad to see you go. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away though. I hid them really well in a coffe mug on the very top shelf in my kitchen. I am too sentimental about junk like that. I keep everything of his. Probably becaue my mom throws everything away and always has.

We are off to Greenville now for our 4th festivities with our big potty trained and binky-free boy!

New Look

Sorry for the lapse in entries the past couple of days. I've been busy. I've been trying to catch up on yardwork and housework from when I was gone for three weeks. I know I'm a slaker, as AJ pointed out. Sorry! I'm staying up tonight to post just for AJ and Angi.

I have been over messing around on my Myspace page, adding some pictures and stuff. I also got brave and added a new blog skin to this blog. I get tired of looking at the same background all the time but I've been afraid to change to something outside of blogger's available layouts. Tonight I finally did it! I still have to redo my blogroll though. It needed weeded out anyway.

We are taking another crak at tossing the binky tonight. It was his decision. He had me call the "binky fairy" on the phone and tell her that his binkies were under his pillow and she could come and get them tonight. I bought him a new Monster Truck to leave from the fairy. Hopefully we will make it through the night without any incidents. I guess when he decides to grow up he goes all out! First the potty training, now the binky. Next will be moving to his own bed...if his mom will let him.

We finished up VBS on Friday. Friday night was Family Night. The kids all sang the songs they had been working on all week. Jaykeb won a soccer ball. We aren't really sure how he won it, but the neighbor brought it over before we left for the program. The neighbors are the youth pastors at the church. He just told us he won the ball and handed it to Jayke.



Jaykeb told us he didn't know he was supposed to bring it home but couldn't tell us how he won it. We are guessing it was a drawing of some kind. He was thrilled about it though.

When we got there Jaykeb immediately saw his friend, Luke. Luke was in Mom's Morning Out with Jayke and has been in his VBS class too. Jaykeb would talk about Luke everynight when he got home. He is the boy he was fighting with. Turns out Luke was talking about Jayke when he got home too. We went over and sat with his parents. The kids all sat on the floor until it was their turn to go up on stage.



Jaykeb always told us Luke started fighting with him but after watching them together all evening I'm not so sure it wasn't the other way around. You could tell they were big buddies though. I am hoping he will go to MMO again in the fall and then maybe we can invite him over for a playdate or something.

Jaykeb was willing to go up on the stage with the other kids when it was their turn but he didn't sing or dance. Mostly he stood there and looked at us then tried to hide behind another kid. It was funny to see him up there. He was very serious about it.



After the singing and dancing was over everyone ate. We left as soon as we were finished because Jayke was tired and starting to get grouchy. He is still asking when he gets to go back to bible school though. I guess I will start him in the other programs the church has too.

Tomorrow (actually today) we are going to Greenville for the 4th. They all kinds of food vendors and stuff going on plus fireworks. I hope the kid can make it to see the fireworks.

Happy 4th of July...I'm going to bed now.

On a brief Blogger break. Will be back this evening. I've been messing around on Myspace and Facebook and cleaning my house. Wish it was a more exciting reason why I haven't been on here but it isn't. New post tonight. Promise, Ang!

Back Home Again In Indiana...

No, I don't have any pictures of corn fields. The corn was not looking too good while I was there. No rain. While we were at my mom's house though, we did a few fireworks for Jayke one night. This was the first time he had done sparklers. Last year he was afraid of the fireworks. This year he loved them. I am excited about that. Mike and I both love fireworks and usually light a bunch of them every year. As of right now we have no plans for the 4th, but I'm sure we will do something.



My mom will probably kill me for putting this picture on here but I crack up every time I look at it so I thought I really need to share it with everyone. Especially her sister in Colorado, my aunt Dona, who reads this blog. I know how they like to laugh at each other, so here ya go Dona, laugh away. I know I am! He didn't burn her, by the way.




He loved the sparklers and had to light every single one of course. When they were all done he wanted to do them again.





You can see the pond in this picture. My grandfather built this pond 35 years ago. I had my wedding on the other side of it. My grandmother's house is on the other side just beyond the trees. On the other side of her house is another pond. I lived in the house on the other side of it as a child until my parents divorced. Now my mom is back just on the other pond. She is in a subdivision that my step-dad is developing called Heron Pointe. Something my grandpa always wanted to do but didn't get to. He got to see a little of it before he died and was really proud.



I always thought I would one day live out here with my family but it doesn't look like that is going to happen now since we moved to South Carolina. Good think I like it here or I would be mad as hell that I had to leave my home.


As you can see, Mom and Jim have put in a wall along their property and a little patio next to the pond. They will eventually put in a pier too. I learned to swim in these ponds and now when I look at them I think there is no way I would jump in there! Well, unless the boy falls in, of course!



In other news...The Boy is still fighting with Luke at VBS. He told me the other night that he did finally play with someone else though. Sara. I asked about her and he said, "I poked her, then she poked me back. I think she was starting to like me." Little turkey. He comes home with all kinds of attitude too. Marching around like he is something else. Tomorrow night is the last night and we will all be going. There is going to be a program and a dinner. With 346 kids having parents there I don't know how we will all fit in the church! I'll let you know how it goes. Jayke won't tell me anything about it so I don't know if he will be in this program or not. I will take the video recorder just in case though!

For another really cute picture of The Boy go to AJ's blog, It's All About Me.

R E S P E C T...

How we didn't manage to take any pictures of our trip to the riverboat I have no idea, but we didn't. I think in the car we were all too stressed out to think about pictures.

First off, we left late which meant Mike was going to be waiting even longer down there than he already had been. I didn't think this would be a problem but I was wrong as usual. He had stopped off in Tennessee to look at some factory a friend of his works at. I don't know why he bothered because there was no way I was moving again! No way! After that he went to a distillery and then up to the boat.

We didn't leave for the boat until 11pm. It takes 3 hours to get there. I am happy to report that none of MY rules were broken, except the one about the music. On the other hand, one of the driver's rules was broken. We all learned a very valuable lesson on our drive to the boat, DON'T DISRESPECT YOUR HUSBAND IN HIS OWN CAR! I guess big Ry made a rule that we couldn't have any adult beverages in the car on the way down. Leave it to his wife to be the one to break the rule. She started drinking her wine coolers right after we left. She even handed one to me becaue I guess she didn't want to go down in flames by herself. I'm a smart girl though and I only took a few sips and put my bottle back in the cooler. What did Ang do? Well, she fell asleep holding her bottle and when she woke up she held it up right in front of her face to see if there was anything in it. Right in front of her face just happened to be right in front of Ryan's mirror and all of a sudden we hear, "WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING!?" Holy crap I was glad I had put mine back. We were only about 30 minutes away from the boat too. She almost made it without getting caught. Lets just say the final leg of our drive was not a happy one but quite funny for those not involved. At this point I was not involved.

Next Mike started sending me text messages to tell us that he was canceling our rooms and going to bed. WHAT? So Ryan is yelling at Ang, Mike is yelling at me and Kim and Bubba are stopping at a liquor store to buy beer and take a smoke break. It is a fantastic trip already!

We finally got there, Mike had the rooms, and we all went our seperate ways. Well, Mike and Ryan went to their rooms and Ang and I went to Kim's. We were trying to figure out if we were going to be able to plug our blender in in the hallway somewhere since we were not welcome in our own rooms. We managed to make a significant amount of noise in the hallway with an ice bucket, a styrofoam cooler, and one ice machine. Oh yeah, plus our big mouths. Kim could hear the racket clear down in her room. When her husband asked what all the noise was she replied, "It's probably Wendy and Angi out in the hallway." She was correct. Mike threatened to kill us all and Ang and I figured we better go find Ryan to bug for a while instead. We had terrorized the 9th floor long enough, it was off to the sixth floor.

It probably would have helped if we had known which room Ryan was in. Turns out if you stick your hotel key card in every door it voids it. I resorted to walking to each group of doors and yelling Ryan. Never found him. We had to go find a house phone and call. Once in their room everyone decided to head down to the boat for some action. I went with them but as soon as they all started loosing money I made my escape back to my room.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We were all on different sleeping schedules so it was hard to hook up. We went out to dinner together with a very friendly waiter. At least he was to Ryan and me. Kept rubbing my back and wouldn't leave Ryan alone when he found out he wasn't feeling well. This is where I found out that my BFF Angi took me down with her on the drinking in the car thing. She couldn't just suck it up and take the heat. NOooooooo! She had to go and tell Ryan I was drinking in the car too! WTH??? I totally would have taken the heat for you Ang! What were you thinking? I'm just glad there were no trash cans around to be thrown when he saw me after that! Oh well, it's all good. I just wish I could have found the right time to sing a little Aretha to you in front of him. R E S P E C T... We tried to go gamble together after that but, as usual, we all went off our seperate ways. Ang and I even ended up in the room with the blender whipping up some Cabana Boy Specials.

We left the next morning. Mike had won $900 but lost most of it again before we left. Everyone else lost all their money and I lost $5. Have I mentioned I'm not a gambler? I'm glad we went though. It was fun. We just need to plan something that we won't all end up going our seperate ways.

Thanks again to Mike for using his player status to get us all the almost free rooms! Thanks to Big Ry for not killing his wife and me for disrespecting him in his own car. Thanks to Kim and Bubba for, well you know what for. Thanks to Ang for telling on me!

Mom's New House

Hangin' With P'Pa

I got a bunch of pictures of our visit from my other mother today. Lots of pictures of Jaykeb with my dad. He loves hanging outside with his grandpas. He likes to work. Too bad he doesn't like to work when I ask him to.

The dogs look like they were still a little scared of him here but trying to warm up.

How can anyone sleep with all this piled on them???

It was my dad's birthday while we were in Indiana so we had a birthday/father's day party for him. He is obsessed with the weather so we got him a weather station. Here he is opening his gift.


....and installing his gift...



Here we are trying to get pictures of the cake before The Boy dives in head first. He gets his love of cake from my dad. White cake with white icing!

Tater Tot (AJ) is helping hold the kid away from the cake.




Working in the office with P'pa.



Here are AJ and Jayke cheesin for the camera. The Boy loves his AJ.

He managed to pet Sasssy somehow. I can't even pet Sassy but Jayke just walked up and pet her until she was done with him then she hissed and smacked him. She doesn't have claws though so it was no big deal. Just startled him a little.


My cousin, Kaitlin, who lives here in South Carolina was in Indiana visiting too. Jayke loved having her there. She swam with him and lay on the couch watching cartoons. He was upset when she had to leave. Here they are watching cartoons together.



And finally, I mentioned in a previous post how AJ did my hair and it looked so good. I really need her here to do my hair everyday. Well, Jayke wanted his hair did too so here is Jayke with his fancy do...



....and one more so he can really hate me when he gets older...



Yes, I said hair "did" on purpose and Tater Tot...we are sorry we didn't get to say goodbye. I was going to call you on the way home but you had way too much going on so I thought I'd wait. I really didn't want to get yelled at either. Sorry!

That about brings us to the end of the first week in Indiana. Good thing other people took pictures for me too because I'm finding I was quite the slacker while on vacation.

Muddy Morning

I was going to write about our trip to the river boat this morning but the morning started off way too interesting to talk about that. I will have to talk about that later or tomorrow. Right now, I have to talk about my morning of mud and madness.

It all began as usual woke up, took The Boy to go pee, let dog's out of their room, removed stick at back door so I could open it to let the dogs out to pee, opened door...two dogs went out...two completely different dogs came in. Yep, the Houdini dogs did it again! Bosley and Sophie escaped their kennel outside and were waiting at the back door when I let Simon and Laynie out. Not only was I upset that they were out but it had rained this morning so they were covered in mud and running loose in my house!

I herded them into the bathroom and tossed them in the tub. An hour later the tub was clogged with hair and mud, I was soaking wet, and the dogs were only halfway clean. I gave up and put them out on the deck to dry. I sent my ace photographer out to get a picture of them and this is what he brought me...



Bosley is the beagle and Sophie is the chow/Australian Shepard mix. They are my two escape artists. They will spend the day on the deck now until Mike can come home and find the week spot where they made their escape. Jayke is loving it though. He has more dogs to play with today. The Boy does LOVE his dogs!


I got an email from Christy, my neighbor, this morning. She included some pictures of VBS. They had 335 kids there last night! Jayke is in this picture standing in front of the woman in the white shirt. He has on a red shirt. Kind of hard to see him in that mass of children but he is there...not dancing though!

Scootin' and Fightin' but NOT Dancing!

Jayke got a scooter while we were in Indiana. I was worried about him hurting himself or not being able to ride it and getting mad but he did great! I got him all the protective gear of course and he wore it willingly. Funny how we all survived before knee pads.



He scooted around my dad's driveway bringing back a lot of pogo stick memories for me. Not good ones either. I managed to sprain two ankles within minutes of each other on one of those stupid things when I was a kid. My dad was a big believer in the whole gettin' back on the horse thing. After I sprained one ankle he made me go back out and get on the evil thing again and I promptly sprained the other one. Thanks dad. Good times.



I was just waiting for an ankle injury to occur but the kid must be a little more coordinated than his ol mother was because it didn't happen. Oma trying to kill us all in the drive way later on is a different story. Note to self...do not let mother run while pulling your child with her and barrelling straight towards you. I knew what was going to happen but it was one of those things you just had to let play out. No one was injured too bad, I managed to catch them both, in a way. I think he may need those knee pads for playing with Oma rather than riding his scooter. Opa just shook his head, knowingly like he always does at her...or me.

So that was my vacation story part of the post now for what is going on here tonight.

Jayke started vacation bible school tonight. I almost thought something was trying to keep us from going. There was a big wind storm as I was taking him and there was a tree blocking the road. I had to back track and ended up getting lost. Luckily I have a compass in the new ride and figured out I was going the wrong direction. I finally found the church but I have no idea how. Driving around later I saw that there were trees down all over the place.

I took him in and he immediately started the "up Mommy!" stuff but Christy swooped him away into the mass of children before he could get started. She told me he was fine once he got in with his teacher and some of the kids from his Mom's morning out group. I snuck in to watch him for a while and he was so cute sitting there in his pew with his friends. He was just looking around taking it all in. He saw me after a while and started acting all embarrassed that I was there. Crossing his arms, rolling his eyes, trying not to smile. Pretty soon they were led off to the gym to start their activities and I snuck out the back door.

Mike and I went to get something to eat but that is a whole post in itself. Let's just say I am not letting him pick anymore restaurants for a long long time.

When I went back to get The Boy he was exhausted. He did tell me two things though. One was that he and Luke, his friend from MMO, got in a fight. Great. Just what you want at VBS. The other thing was that he wouldn't dance because he was afraid all the people would laugh at him. Isn't he a little young to think that? I think his Meemaw might have something to say about this. I told him no one would laugh but he was adamant that he was NOT dancing! We'll see. He is looking forward to going back tomorrow though which is good. I'm not telling him we have Mom's Club in the morning too. Might be too much for the child to handle.

Jayke and P'pa with one of the dogs. Took the dogs about 4 days until they finally stopped barking at Jayke. After that they were fine with him. They kind of grow on you the more you are around them.

Puff The Fireworks Dragon

Everyone puts pictures of the strange things they see along the road where they live or on trips they are taking. I have seen this guy many times but never had the camera or didn't want to take the time to stop. Driving to Indiana this time Jayke wanted to take his picture so we stopped. The Boy is learning from me about taking pictures all over the place and of strange things.

This dragon is outside a fireworks store along the highway in Tennessee.

Anonymous...Keep Your Pants On!

Hey Ang, you have a blog you could sign in so your name appears when you leave your comments. Or, are you trying to be anonymous? If ya are,I'm kinda blowin that for ya huh? Oh yeah, could you try to send me your concert pics please? I want the one of the four of us to put on here.

On to the post...

Apparently Angi is waiting, not so patiently, for some pictures to be posted on here. She actually has the best ones on her camera but I will put a few up from my camera to keep her happy.

First off is Jayke playing in the sandbox with Maci, Angi's daughter. Maci is great with him and I wish they got to see each other more while we were there but they were super busy with baseball, rummage sales, and birthday parties so it didn't happen. Next time I will not be going to Indiana in June. Everyone is too busy with baseball and stuff. I think I may try the fall next year and see if that works out better. Jayke had a hard time staying awake in the evenings to be going out too.



Here is another of Maci and Jayke.



Next up...the concert! Gwen Stefani in case anyone is wondering or missed the post where I told which concert we were going to. It was GREAT! Before the concert we took Angi and Melanie's girls to Libby Lu's to get their hair did. That was an experience for me since I don't have any girls. See how cute they looked...



We got to walk the red carpet coming in and get our pictures taken. Woohoo!

Here is a group shot. You can't see one of the kids in the back. Brannon was hiding. I think he didn't want to be seen with all those girls and us old people. In the back row, from back to front(left to right howerver you want to say it) we have Kim, her husband, Ray, Angi, and Melanie whose father got us the box seats and VIP tickets. Thanks again Melanie! In the front(from back to front) is Brannon (can't see him)Lyndsey, Maci, Haley, and Katie. I'm sure I spelled names wrong there...sorry. I was taking the picture, of course, so am not pictured. I looked like crap so I am happy about that. Should have let AJ do my hair like she wanted to.



This is Maci and Haley. The kids had to stand on the chairs to be able to see. That was fine for a while then they made them get down...then they let them get back up...then down again...and finally back up for the rest of the show. Nuts! We were VIPs for cryin'out loud!



See the backs of those chairs...it says V I P!



Okay, now we are gettin' the party started right! At least, getting it started as much as you can with 5 kids.




Look! It's Gwen!



I sooooo need a new camera! According to my dad I won't be getting it for Christmas though. Guess I will have to buy it myself. Boohooo.

So that is it for the concert pictures. I have more but they are pretty much the same. Tomorrow I will have lots of pictures of Jayke. He had the best time up there but was ready to come home to see his Daddy. He starts vacation bible school tomorrow night. He is excited about that because his friend, Micah, will be in his class. We have Mom's Club on Tuesday too. We are starting to get back into our routine at home but it is hard after you have been gone for that long. From now on two weeks is my limit!

I'm BAAAAACCKKK!!

Seems like I was gone forever. I know I have been a total blog slacker but I think I needed a break from it. I didn't even miss it is the interesting thing. I think because I was so busy. Now that I am home again I was ready to come in here and get back to it.

I won't be puttting any pictures up until later though. Sorry. I am still in the process of unpacking and cleaning and doing laundry. Mike's Father's Day gift has been taking up a lot of my time. Jayke and I got him an XBox 360, High Def DVD player, and several games including Guitar Hero. I wouldn't say I am addicted yet but I can see it won't take long.

I feel like I accomplished almost everything I wanted to while home. The only thing I regret is not getting Jayke over to see Kim's kids while we were there. Everyone is so busy with BASEBALL that by the time they were home in the evenings Jayke was asleep or just too tired to go out. He is still a little guy who gets tired easily. Tired and grouchy.

So what all did we do in Indiana? Besides the Gwen Stefani concert, we hung out in the pool at P'pa's with Aunt Kimmy, Aunt Sherbo, and AJ. We visited Gramma RAin and Grandpa Dave and Jayke spent the night with them. Jaykeb did get to play with Angi's kids one night. He loved that. We visited Grammy, went to Chelsea's graduation party, had a birthday party for my dad, had Mike's parents down for dinner at my mom's with Grammy, and went shopping in Carmel. I got a "girl's night out" with Angi and Jen. We shopped, got pedicures and waxed, and went out to dinner and drank too many margaritas. FUN! That is what I miss down here. We also went to the river boat in Louisville for the weekend with Kim and her husband and Angi and her husband. Mike drove up and met us there. Mike was a big winner but as usual, I wasn't there when he won. It was nice to have a weekend with no kids. Mike and I never get to do that anymore.

I came home earlier than I had planned. Mike was not happy that we were going to stay longer so we packed up and headed home Tuesday morning. Jaykeb was excited to be home but kept asking Mike why he changed everything. He wanted to know why we got a new floor and a new stove. I guess nothing looked the same to him.

I have been extremely proud of Jayke with his potty training. He has not had an accident once since he finally decided to start using the potty full time on his own. He woke up wet only twice the entire time we were in Indiana. He made both car trips with no problem and is going to the bathroom all on his own now without any help from me whatsoever. There is a lot of banging around in there when he goes and he has to take the dog with him but still, all on his own. Such a big boy I now have. I thought the traveling might throw him off a little, but it didn't.

So there you have a brief update. I will try to go into more detail about things as I get the pictures up. I will shoot for tonight to do that as long as Mr. Xbox doesn't call my name. TTFN!

The Rock Star Sings Again!

Who knew that when you are potty training a toddler poop would be something you talk about so often and so freely. I sure didn't, but I do now. We talk about it often and this morning The Boy even sang all of us a little song about it. It went like this...

When you feel the poop come out your butt, plop plop poop! Plop plop poop!

I think it could be a major hit! His song writing abilities are outstanding! Watch out recording world there is a new star rising!

Just Hangin Out

Our trip has slowed down a little now. Just hanging out at Meemaw's and P'pa's. WE will be going up to see Grandma Rain and Grandpa Dave on Thursday then we have another big weekend coming up.

My sisters and AJ will get here on Saturday and we have a graduation open house on Sunday for my cousin. I will probably do something, hopefully, with friends on Friday or Saturday...or both. Had lunch with them yesterday on their lunch break.

Jayke and his P'pa have become best buddies. The dogs have calmed down and don't bark at him anymore. They are still a little afraid of him but it gets better every day. Mom got some cute pictures of P'pa, Jayke, and both dogs resting on the couch this afternoon. When she gets them on here I will post one.

So that is my quick update. I'm finding it hard to concentrate enough to write a good blog entry here. I need to try this at night after everyone has gone to bed like I do at home. Maybe tonight I will get it together and do that.

Shopping, Eating, and Good Music

Whew! It has been a busy weekend! I really didn't want to write about the concert until I could put the pictures on but that may be a while so I'm going to anyway.
It was GREAT! Gwen Stefani does a good show. I figured she would though because she is always good whenever I see her on anything. We ended up with box seats and VIP parking thanks to Melanie's dad. I think this worked out well since we had so many kids with us, they were all contained in our box and we didn't have to worry about losing one. They danced on the chairs and we took tons of pictures. I don't think I've seen Verizon Music Center that packed before.

It was a long day but the girls could hang with us which surprised me a little. We started out at the mall in Castleton, where the girls got there hair did at Libby Lu's. After that we went and ate dinner at TGI Friday's. AJ was with us. She ate with us then went and helped Melanie and Angi pick out different outfits to wear. What kind of women would we be if we went to a mall and didn't shop. I got a Jones of New York sweater on clearance for $27, it had been $129.00. Pretty good deal! It was a good sign it was going to be a good night.

Jaykeb stayed with Meemaw and P'pa. They had a picnic, played Sorry and Jenga, and colored. He didn't care that Mommy was gone until it came time for bed. He asked P'pa, with teary eyes, if his mommy was coming home tonight. He was still up waiting for me when I got home around midnight. He was exhausted and fell asleep soon after I got there. It has been a long time since I have spent any amount of time away from him so he didn't like that very much. He is having a lot of fun with Meemaw and P'pa though.

We are going to go see Grammy, Oma, and Opa today. Aunt Sherri and Aunt Kimmy, and AJ will be here this weekend for my dad's birthday. Opa wants to take Jayke to Summer Heat. I am going to go get a mani/pedi with Angi...did ya hear that Ang? And lots of other stuff. Busy, busy.

I'm trying to get around to everyone's blogs but I don't to make it to everyone every day. I will be around though.

I'm Not Stopping Every 15 Minutes for Gas!

WE made it here safe and sound. Only had one potty issue along the way. It really wasn't much of an issue either. He just thought we were going to stop for him to pee every 15 minutes when he really didn't have to and that every time he "has air" he has to sit on the potty to let it out now. Nope! Not happenin. After the first time having to completely undress him, haul the Dora potty ring into the rest stop bathroom, and having him throw the door open on me while I was pottying that was it. I told him to hold it and go to sleep. He did and we made it with no problem.

Jayke was extremely excited to be there. P'pa and Meemaw had 11 monster trucks hidden all over the house like an Easter Egg hunt for him to find. He wanted his old toys first though. He drug Ppa out to the barn to check out the lawn mowers right away. Must be a kids dream. My dad has like 8 or 9 lawn mowers.

He immediately realized the pool has a deep end and has decided he wants to stay far away from it. That is good, he has fallen in in the past. He will be in the shallow end swimming with his AJ tonight and tomorrow though.

This morning we came over to see Oma and Opa. We got to see their new house they will be moving into in a couple of days. We went over to see Grammy too. Oma had a bunch of new cars for The Boy too. The kid has more cars than the stores have. We went to lunch with Oma and now we are getting ready to head over to my friend, Angi's, house for Jayke to play with her kids, Maci and Matthew.

It has been a busy first day so far. Jayke is extremely wound up and excited to be here. He has done wonderful with teh potty training so far, which I am thrilled about. The new car was great on the drive up too. Much easier to drive through the winding mountains than the Durango was. I didn't realize how much my car looks like my mom's BMW until I parked it next to hers and almost go in the wrong one. I didn't do that on purpose even though I bought a Durango after she did last time. I am not copying her, I promise!

I hope to get some pictures loaded on Dad's computer in the next day or so. I have just been really busy and super tired since I got here. I only had 3 hours of sleep the night before I drove up. Never fails that I can't sleep the night before I drive. I may start leaving at 8p.m. and driving through the night. Would probably be easier for this insomniac!