More Catchin' up- with a new laptop

Seriously?  Nearly a week without blogging?
I wonder if I can even remember what happened.

Monday-  Ashley had a friend over, Eve.  They played so well together.  Eve is a delight.  I know Mason got upset because Ashley wouldn't play with him.  But she really needed the girl time.  That evening they had play practice.

Tuesday- I think I spent most of the day planning where I was going to go on Black Friday.  Then all of my plans changed in an instant when I found a sale on something.  It used to be so nice to be able to say anything on my blog and Facebook, but now I have readers who read my blog and look over my shoulder.  So I can't tell what I got.  My laptop continued to get worse.  It kept shutting down on me.  When the kids came back from play practice they found that the screen on THEIR laptop is now broken.  I have the worst luck with computers!

Wednesday- I remember this day well!  I got up early and went to Sam's Club.  Sam's Club has a deal right now that on one item over a certain amount you can get 24 months same as cash financing.  SO...
I bought this.  Merry Christmas to me!

One of my favorite things about this that I didn't know it had when I purchased it, is the fingerprint login.  It scans your fingerprint to log you in.  How cool is that?  Of course you can login with a password if you need to.  Anyway, I like it.  I really do.  However, with every new thing there is a bit of a learning curve.  I'm not used to Microsoft Office 2010.  It is quite a bit different.  So I've been slowly learning.

 Also on Wednesday, my friend Doris and her son came over to visit.  I played a bit on my computer and then scrapbook.  I made hamburgers and french fries for lunch.  And for dinner I made chicken salad croissants.  And for the kids I made Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  Man there is nothing like it!  I still love it after all these years.

 The kids mainly played video games all day.  They played some hide and go seek, Legos and I think created a craft, and jumped on the trampoline.

Doris' son is super friendly, but he can't remember names for anything.  He has called my kids the triplets forever.  But today he was calling for Austin upstairs.  I said, Austin is in the family room.  He said, "No, the other one."  Doris and I get a kick out of it.

Id-10T

      

Hallelujah!

  I had a friend give me LOTS of hand me down clothes for my kids. 14 pairs of pants that will fit Aussie!  I am so tickled.  I don't know why, actually I probably do know why, Ashley and I always sit at the bottom of the stairs and go through each piece of clothing when clothes are given to us.  We get tickled by everything we pull out of a bag.  The boys like to have clothes that fit, but they could care less about looking at them beforehand.  Anyway, we probably sit at the bottom of the stairs because that is the first place we set the clothes down when we come in the front door.  Tonight when the boys helped bring in the bags they took them to the kitchen.  But Ashley put her bags at the bottom of the stairs.

This is only a small pile of what we got.  These are the clothes that can be worn now.  There's a load in the washer that tea got spilled on it.  And we have 3 more piles: Clothes for Ashley to wear in Summer/Spring, Spring Clothes for the boys and then a little pile of things that won't fit and we will pass on to someone else.  We also got a pair of black shoes for the boys.

I give credit to God.  He knew we couldn't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe. And he provided!

YAY!

 My computer! I'm sure you all know what symbols mean when put together like this: $#@*$!  My computer gave me so much trouble today. 

But it turns out to be an Id-10T or a PICNIC.  I literally spent at least 2 hours trying to fix this stupid thing.  I turned it off 4 times and turned it back on.  When I finally saw a bunch of 000000000000000's going across any typing error, I nearly popped the 0 keys off of my computer to try to get them to stop.  Then I realized that I had an Id-10T error. (Ahem...idiot error) or a PICNIC error (Problem in chair not in computer error).  See even though I am typing now from my laptop, I also have an exterior cordless keyboard attached.  And something was on top of the THAT keyboard pressing down the 0 button.  Duh!  Well at least I know what the problem is now.  I am hoping to get me a laptop for Christmas.  I need one this computer has been such a lemon!

Well thank you Steve and Gayle for sending me the picture of Greg to compare with Mason.  Even though it is the picture that I wanted, it's not really what I thought I remembered.  In actuality when I looked at it again I figured out who it actually is that he looks like here.  It is my brother John.  There is a specific picture in my head but I could never no where to find it.  And it is only this picture that reminds me of him.  I don't really think he looks like him otherwise.  Oh well.  Here are the pictures I originally wanted to compare:

Wow I can barely think any longer.  I'm exhausted.  Ashley is having a friend over tomorrow.  I plan to clean and plan my plan of attack for shopping on Black Friday.

Goodnight!

Scrapbooking

Yesterday was a great day for me!  I had so much fun scrapbooking with Doris.  We don't get to do this often enough, but when we do it is so much fun.

I was tickled the other day I saw some scrapbooking supplies on clearance at Kroger.  I got that tape runner for $1.00 and 2 packs of 8x8 paper for a quarter each.

One thing I never count on but always seems to happen is when I scrapbook with Doris I get her leftovers or products that she has duplicates of.  And her leftovers are AWESOME!  With all of the mess there you can hardly see it, but there is a stack of 12x12 patterned paper there that she gave me.  And I always make it a challenge to use it as she gives it to me.  It's loads of fun.

 When we get together, we are always armed with diet Coke or Coke for her.  And I bring my popcorn maker and popcorn.  Yesterday when I walked in the door.  Her son didn't even say hello.  He said, "Did you bring it?"  It cracked me up.

I am so thankful for Doris and that she will scrapbook with me!

Hard day but a cute plate!

I LOVE how my plate turned out!

It's been kind of a hard day today.

My daughter has a hard time making friends.  She only has 

one or two friends at a time and they are moving in different directions-not physically, but just making more friends.  Which in itself is fine, except that Ashley is left behind and that breaks my heart for her.

We got word back from the company Greg has been interviewing with and the outlook is not so good.  There is a slim possibility it can turn around, but I'm not going to hold my breath.  You know a few weeks ago I had a sense of peace, knowing that he may not get the job.  But more and more things happened where it was really looking like he might actually get it.  Then I started to plan in my head all the different things that could take place if he got the job and I worked myself up.  And now I'm disappointed.

It's hard to be thankful about anything when you are kind of depressed.  But here goes:

First, I am seriously thankful my plate turned out so well.  I was nervous and excited.  It was like opening a present when I went to pick it up this morning.

Second, I am thankful God is taking care of us.  We have a wonderful house to live in, food on the table, clothes to wear (well up until today) and we have toys and pets and more than we need.

I guess I should explain the clothes thing.  This morning I posted this on Facebook:

What's that noise? Oh it's just my head pounding against the door. Aussie was in size 8 for

 literally 1 week, size 10 for 4 1/2 months, pants are way too tight today. I think a friend of 

mine gave me a couple size 12's. I guess I'll have to get them down out of the closet. 

Meanwhile Mason would still be in a size 7 if they weren't too short.

Then what I didn't post, merely 5 minutes after I wrote that, Mason couldn't fit into his 

shoes.  !Ay Caramba!

pictures galore

Yesterday I was all I am WOMAN hear me ROAR!  Today...well ...meow.

Yah yesterday remember how I said how is it some days are so productive and others are not?  That latter would be my day today.  You know those 2 pages of Math I wanted my kids to do yesterday?  Well that would be the ONLY school work we got done today.  Granted today we had to be somewhere at noon.

Today was another picture day for our co-op yearbook.  It has been insane!  We have had to cancel 3 days because of rain.  But today was a pretty day, thank goodness, and we had a lot of business.  Today was my day to be there to check people in.  After everyone who was signed up today came, I went out and took some pictures with my camera.  Enjoy!

Ashley took this picture of me.

Aussie is happy that he got to choose his clothes today. 

Mason is cold!

Ashley is a good sport but cold too!

Alright it seems too much trouble to put these in some type of order so I'll just leave them as they are.

Even though Aussie is looking down I like this picture.  It shows his natural character as being distracted constantly!

All of them LOVE the jackets Nana & Papa gave them for Christmas from the store Under Armur where Aunt Kristen works!  They look pretty sharp in them as well!

 LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Mason!  It is SO hard to get a real smile out of him for pictures.  It is NOT hard to make him smile, but for some reason he gives weird fake smiles for pictures.

And he had to pose in the trough.

 I don't even think they look anything alike.  Do you?  I can't even see a family resemblance between the 2 brothers.  Aussie looks more like my side of the family and Mason looks more like Greg's family.

 This picture of Mason reminds me SO much Greg when he was younger.  This is the first time I have really seen Greg in one of our kids! I would like to get that picture of Greg when he was a toy soldier when he was younger and compare them side by side.

 Goofball!  It's a little hard to tell in these pictures, but Mason was so cold his nose turned red.  I started calling him Rudolph.

 The kids were really freaked out by this scarecrow.  None of them would get close to it nor get their picture taken with it.  I love the background.

 And this last picture tells it like it is.  Yah, hurry up Mom. I'm cold. This is boring. Get it over with, etc.

I am so very thankful it didn't rain today!  After 3 days of cancellations we needed a good day for pictures. I'm also really thankful for my Canon Rebel. I love it!  I still need to learn a lot more, but I'm having fun with it!

Goodnight! I can't believe it's nearly 1AM. Friday is a super busy day!

Yes! It's more about Socks- Get over it!

 There will be 2 posts tonight. Yes, more about socks. I can't help it, this is a big deal to me!

 This is my sock basket...after folding at least 30 pairs of socks.

First I separate them by colors (darks, whites, tans and other) As you can see in the picture below the 'others' get folded pretty quickly as they are easy to match. The tans just happened to be what I folded last.

I ended up folding 96 pairs of socks. Check out the picture below:

There are 23 different styles of black socks and 27 different styles of white socks. REALLY?

Then there were 46 socks that didn't have a match!  Seriously 46?  Who has 46 different socks that don't match?  Apparently I do because I counted them.

Anyway, I decided to donate several of my matched up white socks.

My Mom made a comment yesterday to put a colored dot on the bottom of the socks.  Well I did that with my white socks, but the black mark has faded so much that it is no longer seen.  It was on there with a Sharpie, should I have used something else.  But my question to you is how do you mark the dark socks?  Hmmmm....maybe nail polish.

OK off the sock subject and onto something much more exciting.  Look what I got yesterday.

If you think we could never eat this much popcorn in a year, you would be mistaken.  This 25 pound bag of unpopped popcorn will last us maybe 6 months.  It usually goes faster in the Summer because my dear friend Doris and her son beg me to bring it to their house each and every time  we come over.  And because of school schedules and such we mainly only see each other during the Summer.  But I am excited I will get to scrap with her on Saturday. YAY.  And yes I'll be bringing a jar full of popcorn with me.

She tells me I have the best popcorn and she would be right.  I don't know why but this organic popcorn is awesome!

Now get ready for a post full of beautiful pictures of my kids.  That's coming up next.

By the way I also changed a light bulb yesterday that had been burned out for a LONG time.  This was no easy feat that's for sure!  When I tried to get the glass cover off I ended up pulling the entire fixture down out of the ceiling including the asbestos or insulation.  Thankfully I was able to get it all back up into the ceiling. But I am WOMAN hear me ROAR!

Socks-I'm thankful for them! (I think)

Do you hate to fold socks?

I do! Especially white ones!

What makes it worse is that I wait until no one has any socks left in their drawers and for a few days/weeks we pull from the basket and then I will finally go to fold them.  Then I have a big basket just full of socks.  I have a little secret.  I've been known to just go buy some more so I don't have to fold them.  Now that the boys are a little older,  and wearing practically the same size sock as Greg and me, I feel like I should just throw/donate all of these socks and get new ones that are all the same.  Oh it drives me insane- this one has gray botttoms, this one has green Hanes, these are plain white but the tops are different, these are ankle socks, etc. If they were all the same I wouldn't have that problem.  I'm tempted. I am so very tempted!

As much I hate to fold socks, I am thankful for them.  I just wish that I can get my sons to wear them all the time.  Holy Smokes!  I haven't smelled anything so bad in my life as an active boy's feet after a long day of sweating in their tennis shoes without socks.

I've had a very productive day.  I wonder what makes some days so productive and other days not so much?  Today, I've done all the laundry at least 4 loads, folded all but the socks and got it all put away (Thanks Greg and kids).  I also am just about ready to run my 3rd load of dishes.  I made a pretty darn good dinner- Chicken Parmesan.  And I got the important things done for school.  I wish I had made them finish their Math, but I was quite busy cleaning.  I ran an errand to Green Hills and went to the grocery store. Ran to a couple more stores and showered the kids.  Oh and I also got all the Spring/Summer boys clothes folded and put away.  All in all- a pretty successful day. And now I best be getting back to the folding the dreaded socks.

But first a picture from yesterday, my daughter still celebrating my birthday.

Catchin' up 14th & 15th

I'm behind!  Ugh!- Sorry no pictures.

November 14- We didn't do school.  We could have, but I decided to take the day off.

Aussie has been working hard on his blog.  He wants to delete all the posts that I made him do for school.  Bah humbug! He cracks me up, he told me he is now following my blog.  I guess I better watch what I say.  He also said, that Gramma is only following Mason's blog and not his or Ashley's.  So Gramma you might want to do something about that.

Yesterday, I got to sit in and watch the kids practice for A Miracle on 24th Street.  It is coming along nicely and everyone is doing a great job.  Ashley is a little upset that she doesn't have much to do in the play.  But they needed boys and Ashley just got to be in it.  All of these musicals are really getting me wanting to try out for something myself.  I've never really been in a play, but I think I would enjoy it.  Especially if it was a musical.  Maybe the next time auditions are held for some musical I'll audition.  One that would have children in it as well so all of us could go together.

Today, I am thankful that I can be flexible with homeschooling.  Even though it is not my favorite thing to do, it still has quite a few perks.  Plus, this year is going so much better.  The kids are more independent and can actually do several things by themselves.

November 15-  Today was a pretty good day. We did do school.  Ashley must have been under the weather today, because she was really difficult today, but we still seemed to get quite a bit done.

I just thought wow I'm kinda tired and I looked at the time and see that it is 1AM.  I suppose I should go to bed.  I am downstairs and Greg is rocking the house with his snoring. I think he has a mild case of sleep apnea, but he refuses to believe it.

I got a GORGEOUS birthday card from my Mom today.  I need to work it into my November Daily book somehow.

I put on Facebook that if anyone liked  Christmas decorating and would want to help me let me know.  I got 2 people saying they would like to help.  I'm stoked!  I'm always the one to do EVERYTHING at Christmas time around here.  It should be a lot more fun having a friend or two to help out.

Today I am thankful for Ghiradelli chocolate chips.  Mmmmmm!  OK  that had nothing do with today, so here's one that can somewhat relate.  I am thankful for MY CPAP machine.  It helps me get a good night's sleep.  I sure wish the person who sleeps next to me would get one, then I would get an even better night's sleep!

Celebrating 39! (again)

Today was Harvest Sunday at church.  It is one of my favorite Sundays.  Our church collects over 650 bags of groceries packed with specific foods that make up a Thanksgiving dinner.  Our family brought 5 bags, one for each person to carry to the the front.  These bags are then distributed out to those in need.

After church, my in-laws took me out to eat to one of my favorite restaurants, Logans for my birthday.

Mmmmmm.....I got a delicious Filet Mignon!

Ashley made me a sign that said, Happy Mommy Day!

 Leftovers!

The kids

 had play practice today and then Greg took them to Lipscomb Middle school open house.  Ashley and Mason are excited about the fact that they may be going there next year.  Aussie is not happy about it at all.  He wants to be able to pick his own classes.  I didn't get to go with them because I was absolutely exhausted and had to take a nap.  After the play last night I came home cuddled with the kids and then went out to get groceries for Harvest Sunday.  On my way out Greg called and said some of them were going out to eat.  So I joined them.  Well I still needed to get groceries so I went to the store at 1:15AM.  I got home a little after 2AM.  Since my in-laws are in town and are sleeping on the couch bed in the living room I was trying to be super quiet.  But wouldn't you know I accidentally pressed the car alarm button.  In the morning they said they didn't even hear it.  Greg did though from upstairs.  Needless to say, I didn't get very much sleep last night.

After dinner we celebrated with an ice cream  birthday cake.  Mason wrote Happy on this one and Ashley wrote Mommy on another one.

Delicious!

Today I am thankful for having good in-laws.