This morning the garage floor contractor finally came out to start the floor (again).  After I took the kids into daycare I was surfing the news sites and I heard this loud weird noise and found out that a cute black cat has now adopted us.  I'm debating on keeping it but not sure because I think it might have fleas and we are also allergic to cats.  I'm taking it into the vet to at least get it looked at and then decide whether or not to keep it.  I think it's a female and not over six months old.

"O" was ill with the flu all last week and then "The Hubby's" dad came out and will be here with us until Friday.  It's been pretty crazy plus "N" had his party over the weekend and then was invited to another party this coming weekend.  It should be fun because then on Sunday we have membership classes for the church we go to.  We finally went to church yesterday after missing it for a few weeks.  We were going to go to Easter service but with it being a mega church and there's already a wait to get in sometimes that we just decided to set it out because holidays are the times when people who don't normally go to church, go.  The week before I was pretty sick.

We have this routine for the kids when they're dropped off at school, "N" goes first and then "O".  Lately though, he hasn't wanted to go into the pre-class room.  I asked him why and he said something like they are little compared to me.  Luckily this week will be his last week there and then he should start going to the Montessori school next week.  "O" will start going there when is fully potty trained which we have to start over with since she's been sick.

So really now this week things should hopefully start to calm down and we can get back to how we were. I know that "N" was soo excited at his birthday party.  We did a Spiderman theme and I think they had more fun with the goodie bags then with the other toys.  I bought an inflatable Spiderman Party Game and a type of pin the tail on the donkey but with Spiderman.

Well it's been a busy day with this crazy cat, debating on keeping her but probably just send her on her way. 

I'm so happy that I don't own this house.  We had our one year walk through a few weeks ago and had quite a few things on our list to get fixed and the major one, broken garage door, will not be fixed by either the builder or their contractors.  It is so crappy that houses are not built like they used to be and that people stand behind the products they make or the installation of it.  Case and point, the garage door, the door company said one thing then told the builder another and so now no one is fixing it.  The door company told Engle that a car hit it and we know for a fact that none of our cars ever touched the stupid thing.  So now I'm leaving it up to the owners and I don't care if the door breaks dammit I'm using the stupid thing!

I'm just really in a foul mood because of this and the stupid tile guy still hasn't showed up yet.  I guess at least we only have one year left and we're out of this horrible, crappy city and house. And another thing, none of the kids we invited to "N's" party have RSVP'd yet.  So now I need to leave notes with the kids again and hopefully hear back from them.  I'll be so disappointed if no one shows up.  What sucks is that if they don't show, they're too selfish to call an let me know either way.

Yes I know that I am not very happy today but everyone is entitled to that once in a awhile and today is just that much worse because of the stupid house!  It's no wonder that Engle had to file for bankruptcy.

And you know there has been a lot of medical emergencies going on in my family lately and because of that people are using that as an excuse to be spiteful and mean.  I am so tired of all the games and just wish everyone would just grow up because most we are adults and as such should act like it!  It's times like this that I'm glad to be living 2,000 miles away from people.  I should probably drop this before I say something I'll get into trouble over.

So yesterday was Easter and as of right now we don't make a big deal of it.  You see "N" just had his birthday on Thursday and so he got some really cool presents, slot cars and digital camera, and since they are fairly young and we didn't really celebrate it.  Saturday night I had a sitter come over because I wanted to run a few errands without the kids but have "The Hubby" around.  Normally he's not into the whole shopping thing but I think he had a good time because we went to Trader Joe's, I've never been in one without the kids and it was nice to peruse.  We did get the kids a little something for Easter but we didn't go all out.  The Easter Bunny brought "N" a camera case and a pretty cool watch and "O" got some sunglasses and a bottle of fingernail polish that she then opened and dumped on my already beat up sofa.

What was the beginning of my problem with the weekend was the fact that I paid my sitters $10/hr and when we got home we still had to spend about 2 hours cleaning up the mess that she should have.  So from now on I'm lowering what I pay my sitters unless they clean up what they use (food, games, etc.).  So after "The Hubby" and I cleaned up and I finished my rant about it, we went to bed and we woke up and spent some time with the kids.  After "O" spilled the polish on the sofa I was seeing just more than just the pink polish and sent her to her room for a little while.  I go up to talk with her and not only had she made a huge mess of water in the bathroom plus put hand soap in her hair, they both had gotten on top of her dresser and proceeded to squirt conditioner and hydrocortisone cream all over her room.

So needless to say, I was not at all happy today and really didn't want to see the kids because of that.  We eventually got over it and so tomorrow after "N's" five year checkup and then pick up "The Hubby's" stuff from the doctor, I get to steam "O's" room.  FUN!!!!

Just so you know too, if you have a nail polish remover with Acetone you can use it to get nail polish off but it doesn't really work.   My furniture is just over five years old and yes the cat used it as a scratching post.  And yes I used too hot of an iron to get the candle wax out, and yes the plastic tubing stuff around the sofas are showing but still now I'm really embarrassed to have people over.  What's worse is that I can't really get a sofa cover because the back pillows aren't attached and it would look funny.  I'm now trying to talk "The Hubby" into letting me buy a new sofa.  That's going to be hard because we are trying to have a new mentality on money, we're poor.  No we really aren't poor but the kids think that have all this money because of the things we buy them and so now we're just tired of spending money.  My goal though is to pay down the Magnum and get rid of her.  It would save us almost $500/mo+$475/yr for tags+ the monthly insurance and gas and maintenance.  So really we would be saving a fortune with a car that I don't even use anyway.

We did have a nice dinner tonight though.  We ("The Hubby") made a glazed ham steak with asparagus and nice salad and I have a couple glasses of a nice wine.  I have been drinking a little bit more wine but at least I'm not wasting it anymore because now I know what to look for and what I like.  When we go back to the mid-west and I want to go to lovely Traverse City, I'll know what to look for at the wineries we go to.

I had this whole cool post all set to go because yesterday "N" turned 5 years old and all that cool jazz and I totally ran out of time and it was accidentally deleted.  It happens right?  So we are having his real birthday party next Saturday because we figured with it being Easter this weekend, probably wouldn't work with most people.

We had our little family party last night and he was soooo happy.  We bought him a slot car track and a digital camera (way cheaper then buying a film one) and grandma sent him a pair of Crocs and also a pretty cool outfit (except for the fact that it's Maize and Blue, U of M colors, BAD) and so he was pretty darn happy.  This morning I go to get him out of bed and all I hear is the whizzing of his slot cars.  He has already taken I think 200 pictures with his camera.  Right now he's just taken pictures of anything he can just because he loves too.

We bought him the Kodak C613 6.2MP which is way better and faster than our HP digital camera we bought 5 years ago.  We paid a lot of money for ours and now they are so freaking cheap for more mega pixels.

I think tonight we are going to get a couple new slot cars for "N's" track because one car had already stopped working and then I called the manufacturer for a replacement.  But there's this hobby shop at a mall and we're going to buy a couple with a stronger magnet and also ones without Nascar crap on it. 

I was going to keep the kids home today but the painters were supposed to show up and also there is this HUGE spider on the ceiling, which we can't even come close to touching, and we don't know if it's poisonous or not.  So luckily our landlords are coming up with an extension ladder to help kill it.  It's freaking huge and gross looking. I have a hard time sitting here knowing that it's in the other room.

So this past weekend was almost completely crap.  My sitter canceled on me two hours before she was to be here and since I lent my girlfriend money the other day I thought I would just have her babysit instead.  Yeah right.  I forgot that the people I know are just crappy.  "O" is pretty much potty trained now.  All we have to work on is going poop on the toilet.  Once she feels more comfortable then I'll teach her to go on the big toilet instead of the little one.

After all that we bought an awesome new scanner.  You know what's cool about it???? What you say?  It does an awesome job scanning in slides.  I have a ton from when I was a kid and I could never find a slide projector but this is just great.  It comes with this attachment that actually stays on the scanner and you take the white backing off and it looks as though it was a digital picture from the get go.  Now I only have 500 more to go then I can start the pictures.

Last night I also got a really early birthday present, a watch.  My other one was eight years old, dead battery and the face was really scratched up. 

After doing some of the slides, I saw the strong resemblance of "O" and me.  It's going to be funny to see what she says when I ask her, "O" who is this.  "N" turns 5 years old this week.  We are going to have his party the next weekend because of Easter this weekend.  I never thought I would see the day when Easter was this close to his birthday.  It's hard because we want to get him a digital camera but not the Fisher Price one (not a good quality picture) and I don't want him to have a film camera because it's going to get pricey with buying film and developing it too.  I was thinking about buying us a newer one and giving him our old HP camera.  It's five years old and still a good camera and if we buy him a new one, it's has a lot better quality than ours does. I guess we'll see.

I really just had a rough weekend and I have no idea why.  And this morning topped it off when I go into "N's" bathroom and the smell just blew me away because that boy NEVER flushes the toilet when he goes at night.  OMG every time I have to even go in there makes me mad because he knows what he's supposed to do and yet he doesn't.  I should just build him an outhouse then so he can just stink up the outside (j/k).

We have come to the decision that we are going to wait a year to move to Chicago.  Not something I wanted to do but we will be stressed for time since our lease is up the end of July and school starts mid-August.  Not really a whole lot of time for "N" to feel relaxed and into going to school.  So we are going to wait until the end of the school year and move so that way he has a chance to get used to where we're living and we'll be able to take trips there to check out the school districts and stuff.

"The Hubby" is also going to a new job the beginning part of April which I hope that he likes.  We were going to try and sell my car since he works from home but I guess he's going to drive to the office now so we'll keep it for now.  My car is rarely driven anymore and actually has been sitting outside for the past few weeks and now we found out that we really can't use the garage door because it will keep bending until it breaks or until someone fixes it.  This is going to be a fun one to deal with.  After the garage floor is fixed and we're able to drive on it I don't care, the cars will be in garage and someone will fix this garage door. 

Well it's going to be another one of those days so I guess I'll just tell you about it tomorrow.

Today is Friday and that means that its contractor day for us.  Just about everything in the house has to be fixed and it all started at 8.  I had a guy sitting out there since 7:15 but since we had just gotten up, we didn't want to let him in.  You know, the whole bathing thing, I don't like strangers in the house while I'm getting ready.

So because it wasn't our normal day we were rushed and I totally forgot to brush the kids teeth.  What a horrible mom I am.  I guess a day every once in a while isn't bad.  So I still didn't get the house cleaned last night and we were up until midnight dealing with other house issues and stuff.   So after I post a a few blogs to a few sites that I will get cracking on that.

With everything that has been has been going on with family stuff that the house has been lacking too.  Well, now that's changed and I'm back in action.

I am starting to like the house again.  Obviously the sheer size of it is says WOW.   I really don't understand how 2 people can live in a house this big.  I mean the amount of dust that accumulates, the rooms that don't get used, the yard with the tiny amount of grass.  Maybe it would feel like home if we painted it on the inside.  It's all just white with just a few pictures on the walls.  I have to say that the size of the garage rocks, kind of.  Part of the garage could either be turned into a sixth room (along with the loft to make a seventh), or that part could be made into a third stall.  Right now it's fine being my storage unit.  Except for the fact that since I brought all the stuff from storage, I haven't actually made room for the cars.  Plus with the bikes and trailers, not really room for the cars.

This weekend we are going to spend it outside.  We are going to the parks, bike riding, with and without the kids, playing in the back yard, grilling.  Basically anything we can just to have fun.  We are trying to sell a bunch of stuff on Craiglist but that has taken the back burner and I'm assuming it's not going to sell.  What's funny though, is that we decided that we are going to keep our patio set we bought almost 2 years ago and now people are wanting to buy it.  Of course they don't want to pay what it's worth but their loss.

"The Hubby" did find some new biking trails around our house.  Because of that we are having one of our girls watch the kids on Sunday after church so we can spend the afternoon riding them and trying to figure our where we can bike to with the kids.

"The Hubby" has been offered a new job and will probably take it BUT at his current job, just about everyone quit.  They want him to stay and they know he wants to leave so I guess we'll see how it goes.  The current job is okay with things except for the fact they don't have nearly enough people to do all the jobs and so people get moved around and then put back other projects.  Basically its a huge mess and at this rate nothing is really getting done.

Allrighty then.  I should get going because now the contractors need fun information from me so they can do their jobs.

Wow so it's been since Tuesday that I've posted.  Things have been crazy all around here.  Over the weekend "The Hubby's" dad had that massive heart attack and has some family there to help him.  Hopefully he decides to change his habits so that way he'll be able to recover.  The doctors said that if he wants to see his grand kids grow up that he needs to do a complete turn around the day he leaves the hospital.

We've offered our home to him since he has to take two weeks off anyway but we'll see if he's able to or not.  It would be good for him because he never sees the kids and he just needs to get away for a little while to figure things out.  If he comes out here he would get better because we'd go on bike rides, walk, play outside, grill (since we changed our electric plan, can't use it between noon-7pm) and just stuff other than watch TV.  I think I watch TV in bed for a half hour a night. 

Yesterday we had our electric plan changed and when the electric company put the new box on he had to turn off the power.  Before he did that, "The Hubby" ran around unplugging everything he could and it happened to be the TV's with cable box and DVD players.  No big loss they are still unplugged today.

The kids are in school today because we had to meet our financial advisor today.  We did go on a nice, fairly long bike ride too.  You see, I haven't ridden a bike since high school, 11 years ago, and here we are going down these trails of loose rock and gravel that it makes me nervous.  You see, Monday I was attacked by a killer cacti.  He just jumped right out in front of me and grabbed my left ankle.  Luckily I had "The Hubby" toss me a big piece of wood and I killed it.

Not fun, so when I see these trails I get really scared because the rocks are soo big and loose and all I see are cacti everywhere.  I take it a lot slower than he does but I get to see our wildlife here (freaky looking either chipmunk or a small squirrel).

Tonight we are going to go on a bike ride with the kids.  Since the kids haven't been taking naps, they haven't been able to go on rides.  Hopefully tonight we can.

"N" has now been telling me that he wants to get married and to a girl named Madison.  I'm a little nervous because he's been talking about giving her a kiss and this and that.  He's only 5, what's with the whole growing up thing.

"O" went to the bathroom on the toilet today.  I haven't been keeping up with her lately on that.  I'm trying to be a better mom to them.  Tomorrow they have to go back to daycare because of the house repairs that are being done.  Then this weekend we'll be biking, going to the park and if it gets really warm, maybe even breaking out the pool.  Pretty soon we won't be able to do that because the landscapers are redoing the backyard because it sank.

I think things are looking up for us.  I think we have agreed to push back our move date to Chicago until Summer 2009.  That's nice because we can ride our bikes almost this whole next year.  I am opposed to pulling kids out of school during the school year to move them so we will wait until the end of the next school year to move.  I can't believe that "N's" going to be 5 this year and starts Kindergarten.

I still have to figure out what to do for his birthday this year and I don't have much time left.  Well I should probably go because I'm going to walk up and grab the kids from daycare and let them play outside while we decide if we want to eat or ride bikes first.

So yesterday after getting "The Hubby's" bike tire fixed (only after owning it for less than 24 hours) we went for two bike rides while the kids were in school.  We rode up to a little Mexican place near the kids daycare.  We had an awesome lunch and I didn't feel sick and took a long new way home where on the way home, I got attacked by a cactus.  First time ever while living here and I go out, I get attacked.  No it wasn't a big tall one either, it was one that was round and close to the ground and I really just did not see it.

So we get back and I freshen up and I go to my doctor's appointment and when I get home he's asks if I want to go for another bike ride.  I figure why not.  It's good exercise, nice day, let's go.  We're gone for about maybe 45 minutes and I think we rode maybe two miles.  Nothing to crazy considering I haven't really biked since high school and we were off roading too.  It was a little scary for me at times but it wasn't for too long before we had found the road again.

One day we are going to get a babysitter and start early like around 8am or so and just ride around without the kids.  I would like to take them but there are some places that a bike with training wheels and a trailer just can't go.  Plus I don't feel comfortable enough with "N's" riding skills to let him ride in the bike lane.

So needless to say I slept quite well and need to go to bed earlier.  Today I have kept the kids home and are going to take them on a few bike rides too.  I figured maybe when it gets too hot that we can buy this thing that will turn your bike into a stationary one.  Might be more fun than an elliptical machine.

I've been cutting back on my calorie intake and candy bars so hopefully I should lose some weight and it's more fun to ride than it is for me to go to the gym.  It was a nice day yesterday and I felt bad that I was just too tired after the other two bike rides to take them.

We'll see how many bike rides we can go on today.

I took a few days off from blogging because of so much stuff going on I couldn't keep up.  There has been so much bad stuff happening to my family lately, death, illness, hospitalization, that I just can't understand how one family can take so much.  Before we knew about the latest hospitalization we went to REI and bought "The Hubby" a bike to replace the one that was stolen a few years ago and a bike trailer for "O" to ride in.  We went for a good bike ride as a family on Saturday, Sunday it was just "N" and me since "O" was in too bad of a mood.

It was nice Saturday because "N" was riding his bike like a madman and "O" for the most part sat there nicely.  We ended up going out to dinner afterward and if there were sidewalks to get there, we maybe would have ridden there.  Probably not because it was dark and I didn't have reflectors on the trailer.

Sunday we woke up and went to the early service at church.  We figured that we would eat breakfast after the service but instead of eating breakfast foods the kids wanted to eat pizza.  We bought them the pizza and we sat down then "The Hubby" said we should take turns getting our food while they eat.  By the time I got back the kids had splattered pizza sauce on "The Hubby's" dress shirt and not a cheap one either.  That was the beginning of the end of the kids for the day.  It all just went down hill from there. 

On our way home the kids were falling asleep and "N" took a good nap but then all of a sudden "O" wasn't tired and didn't take one.  So of course I was fighting her about that all afternoon and I wasn't going to deal with her attitude all afternoon like that.  Hopefully she learned her lesson since she couldn't go for a bike ride since she didn't take a nap.

I'm sure that within the next few months things will calm down again.  It just feels like it's going to take forever for us to get back to normal.  At least I know that when we move to Chicago, that there will be a more peaceful living going on.  We'll be near family and friends and hopefully it will feel like home there so we can buy a house and really start living.

I have been meaning to write about this, but the finalists have been chosen for the Vicks Tribute.  Please go and take a look at the eight different videos and vote for the one you thinks deserves the Grand Prize the most!!

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I'm hooked on this web site about these LOL Cats, some of them are pretty funny.  "The Hubby" showed them to me late last year and then totally forgot about them. Now I try to see it once a day and I have to give that person props for being very imaginative. Most of the animals they use are pretty funny.

The other day I picked to kids up from school and we walked home for "Grins and giggles". "N" has been asking me to do it and I finally do and the whole time he's complaining. What a little nerd (j/k), I finally give in to him and he's all, "We should be home by now."  You have to love the "instant gratification" that we've raised our kids on now-a-days.  Oh well, it happens right.

I let the kids go to school again, one of the last days that's going to happen, so I could get the house done for the inspection. After all of that and now I'm butt dragging tired and really want to go to bed.  It was so stressful because the owners haven't been to the house since just after we moved in.  It went pretty smooth and the builders don't have to do a whole lot to the house.  It's weird, out here because after you buy a house, you get a warranty of some sort. The one on this house is a one year from the builder and I couldn't believe what has to be fixed.  I swear they don't make houses like they used to.  But I'll go into more detail about that later.

Since that's now done I'm just waiting for time to pass to walk up to the school and grab the kids again. A funny story about that too. We were walking home and a car pulls up and the driver gets out and says to me, "My grandson goes to school with your little boy and since I've seen you walking, I thought I would offer you a ride." My first thought is, get the eff away from me. Of course I didn't say that and instead said something like, "Thank you but no, the kids have been begging me to walk them home and it's finally not too hot or cold or rainy."  I know she was just trying to be nice but there are people who enjoy walking and I'm sort of one of those people. Plus I don't like strange people coming up to me when I have my kids.

"The Hubby" just told me a funny story about Pop Tarts.  When he would eat them, in his younger years, he never toasted them.  One day he did and thought they tasted much better toasted, when he had Pop Tarts for breakfast on his way out to Lansing, MI, he would turn on the defroster (when it was cold out) and put the Pop Tarts on and let the defroster do all the work about 30-40 minutes later. Ok it was funnier when he told me.