T minus 2 days....

Cindy just called and told me that she ordered something to help Trae at night. She saw it on the Today Show this week. It's a bear and a story book and a scent. You read the book about a boy who sees scary things at night and the scent is there to relax and calm. It sounds really nice and it was so thoughtful of her. I hope this helps him feel better at night.

It's 2 days away from craziness! I'm really excited for the wedding and all that it entails. The actual day is in 3, but Friday is when I do the cake and get to the hotel and go to the rehearsal and set up the cake at night. AAAHH!!! Then it's up at 6:30am and off to do the hair for the bridal party! That will be so fun. I'm just pumped about the whole weekend. I just finished about 4 lists of what I need to do, pack, bring, get at work...etc. The wedding is far enough away that it would be a real pain to forget something, so I hope I'm covering all my bases. Tomorrow I pick up the frozen cakes from Kristin and after work, I'll fill and layer them and let them thaw overnight. Then the fun begins. Not sure if I'll be writing for a couple days then.

Jay is feeling better today. He says I cured him last night..wink, wink...He wanted a little more 'curing' this afternoon. :) He's at the Wild game tonight with Chuck. His mom gave him tickets for Christmas and tonight's the game night. I hope they're having a good time, it's so good for him to be able to get out and hang out with friends. I was glad he could do it, I just hate sitting home all day with the kids.

Well, I have a rather large pile of mismatched pj's on the floor that I need to put together. I've been getting a lot done around the house today so that I don't feel like I'm doing the cake and leaving for the night with a mess at home.

Lighthearted moment of the day.....definately when I looked outside at the boys playing in the backyard on a day that was a first for warm weather. Tony and Tanner had shovels and rather than putting snow into their wheelbarrel, they were shoveling mud from the middle of the yard. The best part was Jay looking out at them and just shaking his head. Not going out and laying into them...just looking at them and realizing that boys are boys are boys....and ours are no different.

I'm so tired

Sooo, I'm going to bed. Maybe if I get a decent night's sleep, I won't feel so lazy tomorrow. Goodnight!

Lighthearted moment of the day....playing Kings in the Corner with Tyler before bed. I love that he's getting to an age where I can enjoy his company and not just be parenting him all the time.

Sorry's just a word

I got a call after lunch today. It was Mindy. When I answered, she said hi...I said hi....then she said...sorry... I busted out laughing. Couldn't help it. It was the way she said it, like it was pure torture to utter. I got her laughing too just listening to me. It was good cuz it broke the ice. I wish I would have thought to give her mom's classic line to the word 'sorry'. Next time. We talked and I apologized too for implying that I might not do Kaylee's hair. Then we talked a bit about Mark. I told her how I really like Mark, which is true...but that I just didn't want her to settle and look back in 10 yrs. and think she made a mistake. I...we just all have to trust her.
Lori came over this morning and we got an addition to the Eclipse website made. It's a page on updos and it features some of my best pics and talks a bit about my experience and training. I really love it, it turned out good. I hope it sparks some more interest. Fingers crossed.....
We went to Dan and Amy's house for dinner tonight. They called last night and invited us which was nice. We were going to have lasagna, but when Dan got home from work and went to put it frozen into the oven...he noticed it took 2 hours. Whoops...we waited for an hour after getting there and it was still frozen in the middle so we ended up getting pizza. LOL That was better. One of the pizzas was made wrong and had mushrooms on it...Dan was NOT happy and called them back to complain. He told the manager that he really wasn't into fungus on his pizza. HAHAHA!! What an ass. ;)
I'm anxious to hear tomorrow if we can get the cake to the hall on Friday. The coordinator wasn't there today. I really pray this works, it would be so much better all around. I can't believe the wedding is in 5 days. What a blast it's going to be.

Lighthearted moment of the day....there were 2 really. First was when Tyler came up to me while I was at the kitchen sink, put his arm around me and said he never wanted to let me go, that he wanted to hug me forever. Wow..almost 11 and still a mush on his mom. I hope that doesnt' ever end.
Second was tonight at Dan's when I expained to Tanner that there was a baby in Amy's tummy. His face was priceless as it fixated on her stomach. I can't imagine what was going through his head.

Happy Easter

The morning started like all other Easters. The boys not allowed to get out of their room until we said so and then waiting at the top of the stairs so I can get the camera ready. It was fun, we still have 2 eggs to find. Found one from last year actually...that was pretty funny. Thank God it wasn't cracked, I think that was the only thing preventing it from smelling to high heaven.
We went to Mike's house after church, it was fun until we started talking about wedding stuff and the itinerary for the day. The more I spoke, the more I realized I would have to pull teeth to get the help I was asking for. Oh well....whatever. I'll figure it out somehow.

Was there a lighthearted moment of the day??.....Okay, so it was pretty darn cute when we all looked over at the kids table and Molly was laying down on it as Tanner had the play dr. stuff and was listening to her heart. He even took the toy mallet for checking reflexes....except he used it on her forehead. LOL

Let's see...

Jay's been sick since yesterday. Okay, so he's got a cold...but I swear, you'd think the world was caving in. What is it about men that make them so bad at being sick?
I took the boys to see Horton Hears A Who today. It was really cute. It was even touching at times...not times that most would recognize though, I'm sure. I just was struck by the phrase used more than a couple times in it. "A person's a person, no matter how small" Yes. Very true.
After getting the boys home, I headed to Target and Walgreens where I spent too much money, once again, on Easter candy. I do this every year. I don't think I got a ton of stuff, but I'm sure when I fill the baskets tomorrow night, I'll be embarrassed at the amount of junk.
When dinner was over, we colored eggs. My favorite thing to do..next to decorating Christmas cookies. But hey, I do it for the boys and that part I enjoy.
I'm tired and it's late, so I'll keep it short tonight.

Lighthearted moment of the day....Trae telling me I was the best mom he's ever had. :)

Baby Mine

Tonight when I got home from work, I went upstairs to say goodnight to the boys. Tanner asked me to sing a song to him in the rocking chair. He does this once in a while and loves when I sing Baby Mine. As tired as I felt and as much as I just wanted to park myself on the couch and watch some TV....I've learned to take advantage of these requests as they will not be around forever. So I rocked him and sang. My little boy. My baby. My gift.

Tony has had a bad time lately with hitting. Whenever the urge 'hits' him, which is often lately, he hauls off and punches the nearest brother. Today it happened a few times before I went to work and then again 4 more times with Jason while I was away. Jay sent him to bed early and had a talk with him when the others went up to bed. I went in Trae's room to say goodnight, I gave the 3 oldest a hug and kiss and noticed Tony laying with his back to me on the bed. I crawled in front of him and layed down.
"how was your night?" I asked
"not good" he whispered
"why not, what did you do?"
"I hit my brothers"
"how many times?"
holding up his fingers "four"
"are you supposed to hurt your brothers"
with his chin starting to quiver and hardly able to talk "no"
"Tony, you can't do that. YOu have to be nice to your brothers. Do you want them to start hitting you back?"
"no...that's what daddy said, that they can hit me back hard"
At this point he's crying such a hurt cry and looks so sad.
"Tony, you know not to hit. Are you a naughty boy?"
"yes"
"no, you're not a naughty boy...you're a nice boy, a good boy"
"no I'm not" sniff...sniff (me)
"yes, you are. You're a nice boy. I don't have naughty boys. You just have to try a little harder, okay. Let's have a better day tomorrow, k?"
"okay" reaches in to hug me.
I love him so much. Boy, that kid can be such a stinker. But he's a good boy. hmm....
Would a good boy shut his baby brother in the van in the garage? After realizing that it had been about 15 minutes since I had seen Tanner and all the other boys were right in front of me, I started asking "where's Tanner" No one knew. "Tanner!"
"Tanner!" No answer....all of a sudden Trae says..I think I hear him in the car. Sure enough, I open the garage door and look out at the van. There he is standing on the other side of the glass, crying. I quickly open the door and he's crying that sort of cry where you know its been going on for a long time. Snot all over his face, cheeks and neck soaked with tears and the heaving breathing that tells me this didn't JUST happen. I start to blame Timmy since he had gone into the van to get something not too long before....and before he could say It wasn't me....Tanner says, between his sniffles "Tony did it" HUH? "Tony, did you lock your brother in the van?" Head hung down...."yah"
Oh my Lord in heaven, what am I going to do with this child. I wonder how long he would have let him sit out there before finally snapping and telling someone what he had done. Thank God it wasn't July...or January for that matter.
I was layed up for a better part of the day with a killer toothache. It's so frustrating because I don't have an end date in sight. If I knew I had an appt. to fix the problem I could bare it, but with not enough funds to do all that needs to be done, I just sit and wait. Because of this, I relied on the boys to be good on their own. I made a deal with Tyler to watch them downstairs for a little bit this afternoon so I could lay down on the couch. I told him I'd give him a couple dollars...which I didn't do yet, come to think about it....he made it about an hour before total meltdown. He came up practically pulling his hair out at the actions of Tony and Trae. Made me sad to think I'm a lot further away from having a live-in babysitter than I had recently thought. LOL Okay, so it was more than that. He's so responsible, but those 2 were taking total advantage of him and got some time in their room for it and some chores around the house. Sometimes I worry that he gets too much put on him as the oldest. He def. plays the part well, sometimes shadowing me as mother (which I've tried to put the cabbash on). He's a good kid though. I love him so much. He's almost as tall as I am...wonder how long before he uses my head as an elbow rest.

I almost forgot! Lori told me yesterday that she has been invited to a Q&A evening and a training session with Nathaniel Hawkins, the stylist on Project Runway. She is allowed to take one guest and guesss who she chose? ME! I'm so stoked! This will be not only great training, but a super marketing tool when getting clients. I think it is a primarily updo/wedding training. This will be AWESOME!

Lighthearted moment of the day.....When I finished singing Baby Mine to Tanner, he requested I sing the Superman song. Not knowing that particular tune, I asked him if he'd settle for Proud to be an American...he did.

Cabin Getaway

The past couple nights the boys and I were up north at Sharon's cabin with her, Becky and the girls. It was actually a lot of fun. The kids were amazingly great....all 10 of them! There were some crazy moments but it's when those times aren't happening that I begin to worry. We got to go to the library this morning for story time and watch Sharon dressed as Peter Rabbit act out the story. She was hilarious and the kids really enjoyed it.....well, Tyler made sure to tell us how torturous it was to be there with all those kids and be expected to listen to the story and sing songs. All the while watching intently and laughing along with the rest of us. That's okay, I understand he has a reputation to uphold in front of a room full of toddlers.
Trae did really well the whole time. No crying at night, no emotional meltdowns, no overreacting........until the drive home. He lasted 5 minutes and then began to cry because he missed the girls and didn't stop until Elk River. He stopped for about 15 minutes and then kept going until we got home, complete with stomach ache, headache, and pulling his hair. What is it about "home" that does this? I just don't know.
I believe Timmy and Trae were vying for Lily's attention the whole time. It was pretty cute actually. SHe's so sweet and they both practically followed her around. Timmy saved her a seat next to him at almost every meal. Could this be the start of a 20 yr. courtship. HA! Just kidding, I won't marry them off just yet. But dang, can I even think of better in-laws? No way.
Tony wants a baby in our home, I just know it. It could be because he came right out and asked not too long ago....or it probably because to watch him with Alison was so sweet. He just watched her and touched her head. He kept leaning in to hug her and when she would cry he'd get this look like "I didn't do anything to her" I think he was in awe of her. I can't wait to see him with baby Adam.
Other than the fact that I didn't stop eating for 3 days.....I had a great time. We played cards and games when the kids were quiet or outside and when they went to bed and I love to do that, so this was a good trip. Sharon mentioned to the boys that we'll do it again this summer.....I really hope that is true, cuz I'd be there in a heartbeat.

Lighthearted moment of the day....Tonight for no reason, Tanner came up to me and put his arms around me and said "Mom, you're my superhero, you're my superhero"