Doesn't this face just say it all....

Yesterday Logan and I went to his friend Jake's 3rd birthday party. Jake goes to a different pre-school now so we don't get to see him everyday.


I guess not having a yard is good for something.....
Giving a good reason why WE can't have an ATV!

When creative ideas go wrong......

Ok so these were supposed to be a reindeer and a snowman. More like a crazed chihuahua and a maniacal skeleton.

Ronan opinion

Some that are turning out ok. Christmas trees with stick on ornaments.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today I think I'm just thankful for Life.
I get bogged down in the everyday stuff thinking "why can't I get a full nights sleep" and "Man I hate driving 46 every FREAKING day" and "could you just give me 5 minutes to myself?" But really how hard do I have it?
I have a roof over my head, clothes to wear, food on my table, some money stashed away and a pretty darn good group of family and friends. I don't have to worry much about how I'm going to pay the electric bill or buy groceries. All my faculties are intact (most of the time), all my limbs are functional. I can see, hear, taste, smell. I think I have it pretty good and today I'm going to try and remember all of that rather than think "I JUST cleaned that!"

And here for your Thanksgiving Day enjoyment, I proudly present Logan and his school mates:

Thankful Day 4

This is an easy one: Friends

Friendship© 1997 Angela

Friendship is the kind of love

that never can grow old.

Warm and cozy it will stay

when other things are cold.

Friendship is a love so true it won't be denied,

Because a friend will always be there close by your side.

Boyfriends and lovers come and go

in this game of life we play,

But a true friend, no matter what,

in your heart will always stay.

So hold these friends dear to you,

and never let them go.

Think how much they mean to you,

and make sure to tell them so.

This goes to all my friends near and far. You guys mean so much to me I don't think I could ever find the words to tell you.

My life long friends: Cass and Vic

My real life friends: Val, Cheryl, Gail, Kathy, Roberta,

My Bunko friends: Debbi, Penny, Leslie, Kelly, Karen, Cynthia, Renee, Amy, Kathleen, Grammy, Lindy, Danielle

My quiliting friends: Nancy, Martha, Juleen, Natalie, Suzanne, Lynne

My mommy friends: Trisha, Kim

My online friends: Nicole, Tricia, Kristin, Carrie, Kristi, Hope, Heather, Cory, Tamala, Linny & Kyle (although I may have never met you in person you've been the best support group ever!)

Thankful Day 3

In these crazy economic times, I'm thankful that I have a job. A job with benefits. And one that is flexible enough to allow me to make up time when the boys are sick and allowed me to work from home when the boys were babies.

Thankful Day 2

Where we live. Its beautiful, pretty safe and temperate. We can play outside nearly year round. We have the ocean and mountains and desert all close by.

Things I'm thankful for

In honor of Thanksgiving I am going to attempt to post something I'm thankful for each day til Thursday. Today I'm thankful for: BABY FEET

Two little feet, ten little toes,

Leave their impressions today.

Soon they will wear two little shoes,

And be running and jumping at play.

Two little feet, too little time,

Before they are walking to school,

Kicking a rock, or skipping a rope,

Wading a puddle or jumping a pool.

Two little feet, One little child,

Will soon go their own way,

But footprints in my mind recall,

They stood here yesterday.

Don't know who wrote that poem but it fits. I never imagined little feet could leave such big prints on my heart.

Going green

In an effort to reduce our Christmas waste I decided to recycle some packing material and have the boys paint it to use for wrapping paper



It resulted in a couple of very dirty boys (nice twin boogies Ronan!)

And some unique wrapping paper!

We all snuggled on the couch last night after bath and watched Wall-E. Its a very cute movie. It was supposed to be a stocking stuffer for them but I didn't get it hidden in time and Logan snagged it out of the bag.

Night 3 of No Paci was not quite as successful as the prior nights but we managed. There was a little crying (just him, not me) but once he realized I wasn't going to give it to him he resorted to squirming and flailing about. When that didn't work he climbed into my lap and went to sleep. (I admit I did cave at naptime and let him have one 'because he just wouldn't setlle)

Promised Logan we would take him bike riding today. So thats all we have planned. Hopefully I will feel better I have the whole "lost in space" thing going on right now.

Day 2 of No Paci

I had planned on using next week as the NO MORE PACI experiment but it came a few days early. Gramma watched the boys Thursday evening so I could go to quilt group. She got Ronan to bed with no paci so I decided that I would continue. When he woke up (as he always does) during the night I didn't give him one and he was pretty tired so he went right back to sleep. He woke up again at 4 and padded down the hallway to our room and climbed in, no paci, right back to sleep.

Last night however was a tad harder. He was overtired so there was alot of kicking and squirming and moaning and groaning when it was time to go to bed. I just kept laying him down and putting him BACK in the bed. He finally gave up and went to sleep. He had a restless night but didn't seem to object too much to no paci. It was harder to get him to go back to sleep last night and he got up more. But finally he went back to sleep and stayed asleep. He was however up bright and early at 5.

I'm not feeling so well so I was not very happy with that. Logan of course had to get up too since Ronan has no concept of volume control yet. I feel like going and hiding in the closet as I just have no patience today for the petty sibling rivalry/possessiveness that is going on right now. I just can't deal.

But I must admit the no paci thing is going much smoother than I had thought. I thought there would be much more screaming and crying (on both our parts). It may well get worse but so far so good.

Army of Women

Be One in a Million and Help End Breast Cancer

The renowned Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, the Avon Foundation and Avon are joining forces to launch the Love/Avon Army of Women. it is a revolutionary call to action to recruit one million healthy women of all ages and ethnicities to join research studies, to help scientists understand what causes breast cancer--and how to prevent it. Now you will have the opportunity to directly participate in the prevention research that will help solve the puzzle of how breast cancer starts and how to prevent it before it occurs.

Scientists apply to the Army of Women for the opportunity to recruit healthy volunteers for their basic research, and all studies will undergo a scientific, safety and ethical review. Women who have signed on to the "Army" will be informed of research studies and decide if they are interested in participating. All information will be held in strict confidentiality, and there will be no testing of drugs or procedures--these are not "clinical trials."

What will the Army of Women do?
-- Encourage research into what causes normal breast cells to become cancer cells.
-- Shift the focus from finding breast cancer early to preventing it in the first place.
-- Provide researchers access to volunteers so the focus can shift from the lab to women.
-- Empower women to participate in breast cancer research.

You can learn more or register on Love/Avon Army of Women web site: www.armyofwomen.org

HA - I'm a bad wife

45 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

$73.66

per inch, is what it cost me to get my car back. $442 = $72 for someone to sign the release form, $330 for the impound yard (don't get me started on how they calculate their storage days!! Lets just say RIP OFF) and another $40 for a PARKING TICKET! OH and thats what got us towed. 6 FREAKING inches. I was parked 7 feet from the railroad tracks and you must be 7 1/2. WTF?

But I got my car and lesson learned I guess. I still don't see why they couldn't just pull the card backwards 6 inches and slap me with a parking fine and tow service call bill. But whatever...

pictures

if you click on the pictures you can get a closer view

The things that look like dried leaves are the butterflies!




Logan watches them fly


Playing in the water, Logan jumps!


Losing his pants to soggy wet denim!


Hey where'd my feet go?

Hmm, what is this stuff?

Its kinda neat

Ronan tries a jump

Ronan didn't like the after effects of jumping! Getting soaked with cold water..


He was eating everything within reach...

Saturday Adventure!

It was a beautiful day so we decided to head down to Pismo Beach to the Monarch grove to see the butterflies.

We get there, park and go wandering through the trees. It was pretty neat to see them all fluttering about and hanging on the eucalyptus leaves (although I will admit I was probably the most interested of the 4 of us!) I didn't realize it was right next to the beach so I didn't bring any of our beach gear but we headed over anyway. The boys ran around in the water getting soaked in the process of course. Ronan liked it until he fell down and really got wet, then it wasn't so fun anymore. So we decided to hike back to the car and go get some lunch. We leave the grove and look across the street and see....... nothing. A big, gaping maw where our car used to be.
Umm, err, ummm didn't we park RIGHT THERE? Fighting back panic we think 'had to be towed, had to, no one could steal it right here with a zillion people here right?'. What to do what to do.

So we hike over to the ranger station and explain where we parked and everything so the girl there Jordan (thanks for all your help) radioed the ranger and asked if Grover Beach PD had been towing anyone today and got the response that yes some cars had been towed. So she lets us use the phone (cell phones, wallets EVERYTHING was IN the car). We look up the phone # for the GBPD and call. The dispatcher gives us grief about this being the emergency line. ummm hello?, this is the one LISTED IN THE PHONE BOOK not 911. Anyway Judd explains and she says you can only get cars out of impound M-F. He explains about the phones, ids, carseats ect being IN the car and tells her we live 50 miles from here, have two small children and NO MONEY, phones or IDs. Her response "I don't know how to respond to that" and puts him on hold! So she comes back and says again we can't get the car till Monday but gives him the name and number of the impound yard. (WTF is up with them not letting you get your car on the weekend? When Sparky was impounded for an extra fee we could have picked him up on the weekend at 2 am if we wanted but whatever) So we call there and explain and tell them it will take at least an hour before we can get there to get our stuff out (gramma is on the way to rescue us) so they give us the tow truck drivers direct line to call when we are ready. The boys are very exhausted by this point. But I walk them around the campground looking at all the campsites (thanks nice people who let us pet your doggie). Gramma arrives and we call the tow company. After about 15 minutes of explaining (again) the situation and hearing alot of "black Toyota Highlander", Toyota, Grover Beach, Toyota, Highlander, Black (I guess thats a really hard car make to remember) Judd finally gets "he's not answering the page, we'll call you back".

At this point EVERYONE is exhausted, thirsty and hungry so we decide to try and get something to eat. Just after we order the phone rings and they tell us he will be back at the yard at 4. (Its about 3:15 now) Luckily the restaurant wasn't busy so we were able to eat before going to the yard. Judd and Gramma head over there while I wait with the boys so they can finish eating. (I think the waitress thought we were doing a little dine and dash as she certainly checked on us alot! I put the money on the table so she was a little more discreet after that. The boys got ice cream with their meals so they were very happy but were getting tired of being contained so I paid and we went outside. I was starting to worry that something had gone wrong since Judd and gramma still weren't back. After about 15 minutes of running laps around the deck Ronan was very close to meltdown mode so I hiked them down to the parking lot to look for bugs in the flower beds. Gramma shows up and says she got lost on the way back to get us and that in their rush to get over there in the first place they forgot the KEYS (which were in my pocket DUH! And I'm considered smart most of the time)

We get back to the tow yard (thank you nice tow truck driver for being so patient), get our stuff and head for home. Its now a little after 5. Logan falls asleep after about 2 minutes of driving. Ronan however has gone beyond tired and into "nothings going to comfort me but you holding me mommy" mode and of course I can't so we had to listen to him screaming for most of the ride home. I finally have the brilliant idea of giving him my cell phone to play with so the last 15 minutes were relatively quiet.

Home at last..... Get Ronan into a dry diaper (finally, thank goodness he didn't poop!), washed up, jammied, paci-d and he crashes. Logan goes soon after.

Thank goodness this day is over. It will however start all again on Monday when we have to try and coordinate getting to Grover Beach PD to get the release then to the tow yard and home with the car. But thats tomorrow.....

The most irritating thing was WE DIDN't PARK IN A NO PARKING ZONE. They said it was for safety reasons 'cause we were parked by the railroad tracks. And the tow driver said they did go over to the grove to see if they could find us (we were on the beach at the time). But still, it doesn't say not to park near the tracks or have any type of parking instructions. There were 7 or 8 cars parked just like us. But oh well, live and learn I guess.

Have some pics to post but I'll do that later.

Its Sat at 6:10 am

are you sleeping? I wish I was. My kids have got their internal alarms messed up. They have been getting up at 5:10 every day. I keep trying to get them to go back to sleep but have little success.

Weird how I don't mind getting up early if it is for myself (going to the gym or whatever) but it really irritates me when someone else wakes me up! Grrr I want to bite someone....

Not sure what the plan for the weekend is. Supposed to be nice so definitely something outside.

For those of you that do, please pray, give a shout out, send good karma whatever to a friend of a friend. His name is Diego and he is in critical condition. He is a husband and father and a really great man. He and his wife are two of the few people who stood up for my friend Cass when her husband wigged out on her in Puerto Rico. Hang in there Diego your family needs you!!

Happy early birthday Val!

Last night I went to a Holiday Dessert class. It was YUMMY. Found a recipe I'll be trying out for Thanksgiving, just hope it turns out as well.

It was a surprise birthday party for my friend Val. She totally didn't have a clue, it was AWESOME! As we were walking up to the door she goes "look there's Martha and Nancy and....
Too funny.

We met gosh it has to be 8 years ago at least. We met through cycling (who'da thunk?). Since then we've biked our way through at least 1000 miles (metric centuries and AIDS rides) and walked probably at least 500 with various charity walks and all the training involved. She loves to quilt too and invited me to join her quilt group. We laugh, talk, eat, drink and be merry. She is a great friend and always there to lend a hand or an ear or whatever

Love ya Val! Hope your next 60 years are as full of fun as the past 60!

What we did today

We headed down to Morro Bay to see the replica of the Nina. It was pretty cool. It was, unfortunately, very windy so we did not get to see her at full sail.









Afterwards we went to Taco Temple for lunch. 3 different people told us as they were leaving what well behaved children we had. I was thinking, "Well if you could only see them at home!" But really they do behave well in restaurants so thats nice. We've yet to have a screaming meemee fit (knock wood).

Day on the ranch

Yesterday I took the boys over to the ranch for a little fun. Ronan spent a lot of time hiking off trail....

and a little strollin...

and even less riding his trike


Logan, however rode the entire 2 miles..!

My budding artist

He also covered his lower half with marker as well. I managed to get most of it off, just faint lines on him but the couch is toast.......

It wasn't a trend

AGH I'm pooped

Ronan was wacky last night. Leslie said he had a weird nap as well. We got home and had dinner. I did anyway, neither boy wanted anything much. We then proceeded to watch Monster Jam. Ronan climbed in my lap and fell asleep about 7. I put him to bed and Logan and I worked in his new workbook. Then Logan went to bed and I watched my DVR of Grey's. I went to bed about 9 and read for awhile. About 9:30 Ronan starts futzing. Go in and check on him and he settles, 10 min later it starts again lasts until about 10:30 when I give up and bring him in bed with me hoping he will relax enough to really go to sleep. Didn't work so well. When Judd got home about 12:30 he was in full blown, flailing about crying mode. I try and get him to calm down and nothing really seems to work. I'm asking him if he's hungry, does he want some milk? At that he climbs down off the bed and heads for the stairs - OK I think he must be hungry from not eating dinner. So we go upstairs and he eats a waffle, a yogurt, some Cheerios and drinks some milk. He then proceeds to putz around for another 3 hours. Occasionally checking back in with me for a snuggle but pretty much wide awake. He finally gives up at 3:30 so we go to bed. Logan then comes in at 4:30 and climbs in. Of course that wakes Ronan up and he starts again. GAHHHHH. Judd gets up and says I'll take him. He then goes to the bathroom and by the time he finishes and gets his robe on Ronan is back asleep or dozing at least. So he sleeps till about 6:30. I take him upstairs and unleash him on daddy sleeping on the couch. Logan and I continue to snooze for another hour.

Judd said Ronan had a very weird poop so perhaps thats what was bothering him. Won't give you all the gory details as really there is no reason to share THAT! Here's hoping that is what it was and we have a quieter night tonight.

I'm going to get the boys dressed now and take them on the promised wagon ride......

Its Monster Jam Madness over here!

I think I've created a Monster!

We have to watch Monster Jam every day when we get home. Its quite funny. Ronan goes "WHOA" every time one jumps which if you've ever watched Monster Jam is ALOT!

so now I hear alot of WHOA and good save! and Nice Air!

He did it!

Ronan slept all night! (well until 4:30 anyway) We've been putting him in the Thomas bed since the weekend and he seems to like it much better. Not sure if last night he was just overly tired or a trend is starting (lets hope!)

The only real problem with the Thomas bed is his easy ability of get out of it. When he wakes up he just gets up and walks out. He toddled into our room this morning (I could hear the splat splat splat of his little feet on the floor), climbed in and slept until 6. Its also hard to put him down at night, he just gets up, climbs upstairs and then plays or climbs in my lap and falls asleep.

Now if we could only get rid of the dang paci!

Crud I've been tagged

By Kristin:

Six by Three Meme....

So here goes...
Six things I value:
1. Family
2. Friends
3. Honesty
4. Loyalty
5. Determination
6. Freedom

...Six Things I do Not Support:
1. Discrimenation in any form
2. Hatred
3.close mindedness (good one K)
4. Dishonesty
5. Not believing in anything
6. Unwilliness to accept responsibility

...Six People I Tag:
1. Cheryl
2. Cass
3. Heather
4. Hope
5. Kristi
6. Trisha O

Finally

its over. No more hate ads, no more lies and distortions. Hopefully we can now start getting moving in a better direction. While you may not have voted for the same guy as me, we are all in this together and need to work together to fix things.

What they really should do is limit campaigning. 6 months for primaries, 6 months for the presidential. 2 years is WAY TOO FREAKING LONG. If you can't get your message across in 6 months then you are not very effective. I was done with this election before the primaries were even over. Seems like time (and money) could have been better spent in actually doing something other than making the other guy/woman look like a terrorist; Anti Christ; crazy ole man; scary woman. Maybe the country wouldn't be in such a big mess.

There is a long road ahead for our new President and I really hope that he will be able to get the Congress and the HOR to work together to make our country strong again. Senator McCain has been an asset to our country. He deserves respect for his sacrifices and his service. I hope that he will lead the way in mending fences and doing whatever he can to help our new President get our country moving forward.

Its amazing to think that we have elected a man of color to be our President. Its a step forward, maybe we will see a woman president some day! Maybe the American Dream isn't lost after all...

Good Luck Mr. President. I really hope you can make the US better and I hope the fear and hate people feel towards subsides and they realize you are a good man with a great heart and are really trying to do whats best for our country.

YAY

Yes We Did!

My little fan

Here is the link to view Logan in all his glory as Fan of the Week

http://www.ussx.com/newsletters/monsterjamweekly/monsterjamweekly_081104.html

HA HA look at this

I sent Logan's halloween pic into Feld Entertainment who promotes Moster Jam, I got the following email this morning:

Thank you for sharing your sons Halloween photo with us. He looks great! We are including him in this weeks Monster Jam Weekly newsletter as fan of the week. If you are not a subscriber, let me know and I'll be glad to forward it to you.

Have a great day!Linda

Linda Ardehali
Director of New Media
Feld Motor Sports

HA I'll post the linky when I get it!

halloween pics!

Well we had a very nice Halloween. Rained and gloomy in the morning but cleared up for the afternoon and evening. It was almost humid so we didn't need to bundle up or anything. Logan went in just his tshirt. The Downtown Association in Paso put on a shindig in the park. For those of you who have never been to Paso the downtown area has a large park with shops on 3 sides. They closed off the streets around the park so the kids could go shop to shop. They had a haunted house and carving contest and kettle corn and hot dogs. Very nicely done. Anyway we had fun and will definitely go back. I think seeing all the kids dressed up and not having to actually go up to a strangers house helped Logan to get over his usual reticence to try anything new. He said trick or treat and thank you each time. His costume got lots of compliments (YAY) and we heard lots of "look at that, he's a MONSTER truck". Most of the merchants said his was the most original costume they'd seen. One lady was so impressed she told him to take a whole handful of candy. Logan was a little confused 'cause he had only picked out one tootsie roll. She kept saying "no a whole handful". I think he thought he was getting in trouble for picking one out. He finally got it and grabbed a bunch. It was very cute. He had a good time. He seems to have forgotten about his bucket of candy so hopefully he won't remember too soon. I think the Sugar Fairy is going to come and take some candy to give to other kids who didn't get to go trick or treating. Gotta keep them pearly whites pearly!


This is the Halloween shirt Logan made at school.




Ronan the pony. He didn't much like it so it didn't last long!

He didn't mind so much while playing hoops though....

So he ended up being a lion. I think he was so entralled by all the people he didn't realize he had it on. Too bad he wouldn't let me add some whiskers!


The final product!

I think I may send these pics to Ford and Monster Jam. I may not be the most artistic person but everyone who saw it knew exactly what it was!