Pink Sheets

Monday, July 31, 2006

Riley and Darby were talking on the way back to their dad's last night. I should really not allow them to speak.

Riley had gone fishing with his grandpa earlier that day and he was telling us about seeing a deer.

Darby: "Was it a baby deer?"

Riley: "No! If it was a baby deer Grandpa and I would be in danger! When there's a baby the mom isn't far away. It would probably ram our car."

Darby: "Hee hee."

Riley: "It's not funny Darby! If a deer rams the car we could die! It could explode!"

Darby: "Hee hee."

Riley: "Fine Darby, if you think it's so funny that I might die, I would think it was funny that you would die too!"

Darby: "Oh Riley. I doubt I'll ever die. Unless I get too old."

Friday, July 28, 2006

Unmotivated

Usually I can read blogs in the morning and then by afternoon I'm motivated to write a post. This hasn't been the case for the past couple of days. I'm blogged out. Maybe Monday I will be able to start fresh. Maybe Monday I will have some news for you.

Right now, I have nothing. Well, Jillian is still her cute, adorable self. She is going to take her first step any day. I don't want her to. She will be entering toddler stage at that point and frankly, I don't want my sweet, little baby to be a toddler. I prefer her to stay a sweet, little baby. She's the last one I have. Hmph.

Have a great weekend.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Yours, Mine, And Ours-Literally

I've seen the movie and in the movie they each have their own kids and they get married, combining the two families into what they call "ours". Brian and I literally have "yours" which is Jordan, "mine" Riley and Darby, and "ours" Jillian. (Or you could change the mine and yours depending on who your talking about.) Then we combine them all together and get a lot of fricking kids.

I was just thinking, since we have all the kids together this week, how happy Jillian is when she has her brothers and sister with her. It's so cute. She has no idea they aren't related. She just knows they're her best friends. They're fun. And when she's in the same room with them she doesn't fuss or whine or want to be held. She just wants to crawl all over them or have them tickle her or make funny noises at her or just talk to her. Basically, she wants their undivided attention. Which she usually gets. It's very rarely that they tire of her and want me to take her out of the room.

I was also thinking how she is such of mixture of each child. She has a little bit of each of them in her face. She has Jordan's eyes, Darby's mouth and cheeks and Riley's chin. Sometimes she sucks her bottom lip in like Darby does (which drives me insane). One time her, Jordan, and Brian we're sitting on the couch and it was indisputable that they were brother and sister with dad. And now that she's getting older and more mobile I can see a little spark of Riley every time she uses the wipe box to climb on her Leap Frog table or stands on her bouncy chair-backwards-to bounce.

It's weird how this genetics stuff works. Of course, Brian completely lucked out in that both his kids have dark hair and blue eyes. Exactly like him. There is no question those two belong to him. I, on the other hand must have the weakest genes in history. Out of three kids I did not get one with dark hair and dark eyes. Not one! What are the chances? I suppose it doesn't matter. I love my oldest with his dark eyes and dark blonde or light brown hair (it's hard to tell, but in the summer, it's pretty close to blonde), and my little girl with her blonde hair and green/blue eyes and of course the baby, Brian's clone. It's okay they have none of my features. (Well, Lass does tell me that Darby looks exactly like me, which make me feel better.) I just love that I can look at them and know they are all connected to one another. I think it's pretty amazing, actually.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Going to the Mountains

Alright, I have finally finished my little photo journal of our trip to the mountains. I wanted to document our trip from start to finish. One of the first places we see on our way up is this huge ass million dollar (or more) house sitting on top of a hill. It's a gigantic house. Huge. We begin to approach the hill it sits upon and this is what I see:

Okay, what's going on? Am I losing my mind. There used to be a big ass house sitting on that hill. I can't see it. Did we pass it? Unfortunately this is the hill it was on. It was. Now the house looks like this:

If you can't tell that's a huge black spot. Where the house used to be. It burned to the ground. Here's the story. It was struck by lightning. Can you believe it. I have no idea exactly how big this house was but a million dollars buys a lot of house in Idaho. The front was mostly windows and the story says it was three stories. I'm a little sad it burned down. I liked looking at that house. It was pretty and now I don't have a picture of it. I guess now when we pass we can say "that's where the big ass house that burned down used to be."

If your interested visit here to see the remainder of our journey.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Busy

I'm so busy. I had a granola bar and a diet coke for lunch. Puke. I don't even get to go to lunch or martinis this week. *sob*

Anyway, I am working on getting photos. Get excited and stay tuned.

Monday, July 17, 2006

It's Final

It was such a relief to finally read the words, "plaintiff shall have visitation". Yes, visitation. No more half weeks. No more having to tell him, "no, I'm sorry. Your not going to see your mom today. Your grandparents will pick you up and we think you'll see your mom on Monday." No more picking him up on Wednesday and asking about his week with his mom only to hear him respond, "I didn't see my mom this week. I spent the night at my grandma's," with sadness in his voice. No more phone calls asking us to pick him up early because she has to work, or go to school or go shopping. All much more important things to do than spend time with your child.

Finally he will have stability. He will live in a home filled with the things he likes and enjoys, not things that are forced upon him or told he will like and enjoy. Finally he will live in an environment where he can express his thoughts without censor. Finally he will be in a place where kids are welcomed and bragged about. Not one where he will be made felt like he doesn't belong. Finally.

Of course, if you asked his mom I'm sure she would tell you that she raised him herself with no help, even though the majority of his time with his mom was spent at a grandparent's house or aunt's house or some random stranger's house. Anyone she could get a hold of in order to spend the least amount of time with him as possible. She claims to be responsible for all he's learned in his five years. Which is amazing. It's amazing to me she can teach a child to read and write in only five hours a week. It's a shame she's keeping this gift to herself. She should become a teacher. With this sort of magic children would only need to attend school a few hours a month rather than the 20 or so days they go now. What a shame.

But finally, her lies will no longer be a part of his life. Her self serving rants will have no effect on him. He will be with us, except for every other weekend and Wednesdays on the off weeks. At which time he will probably be with a grandparent. Finally.

Camping Out, Damn It

Well, we finally made it up to the mountains this weekend. It was nice. Except for the leaving part. For some God awful reason it takes us hours to leave. And I'm not including the packing everything and getting everyone in the car part. I'm talking about after that. After we have everthing and everyone in the car. Something always goes wrong. Always. However, we finally made it to the cabin about 2:00 on Saturday afternoon. We used to leave Friday nights, but that's much too stressful on us. Apparently, so is leaving on Saturday morning. Regardless, it always ends up being worth it.

I won't go into great depths about our little trip because I have pictures. I know, I know. It's always so exciting to look through someone else's vacation pictures, but fortunately for you I'm going to put them on the photo blog, so if you desperately want to see them you actually have to click over to the other blog.

We did the normal going to the mountains activities. We sat around and did nothing, built a fire, went on a mini hike. However this trip was a little different, a little more adventurous for the kids. This trip they spent the night, up the hill, in a tent. By themselves. We were in the cabin with Jilly and they were up the hill in a tent. It was a very big deal for three little kids.

It was a very big deal for Darby. She didn't want to. She was afraid. So, I made her. I told her she needs to hike her little butt up that hill and go have fun. It wasn't an option. So she ran up the hill, probably pretty close to tears, and went in the tent. Brian was up there with licorice waiting for her return. She asked him if bears would attack or eat their tent. He reassured her that bears don't eat tents. They eat berries and honey. That's when Darby slowly turned to look over at Jordan's purple mouth. Knowing that she too had a purple mouth. "Oh my God Jordan! We've been eating huckleberries all day! Do you think they can smell them on us?!" No Darby. Go to sleep and have fun.

And they had a great time. So great, in fact, that they woke up at 5:30 in the morning to play on the side of the mountain. I very calmly got out of bed, stuck my head out the door and told them they need to get back in that tent and go back to sleep. Very calmly. Seriously.

We didn't stay long, but it was still fun and relaxing. On the ride the home the kids were talking about wanting a parrot. "Would it repeat everything we say?" Riley inquired. "No, just things we say alot", Brian answered. "Oh! Our parrot would always say 'damn it Jillian'", yelled Jordan. Oh my God, why would our parrot always say 'damn it Jillian'? That's horrible. I guess, that's what I'm always saying. I know it sounds awful, but I do.

In my defense, that baby is always falling and pulling things over and hitting her head. Everytime I turn around she's sobbing because she's been in some sort of accident. And it's not a "damn it Jillian! That's it! You are getting a beating" type of damn it Jillian. It's more like "damn it Jillian. You poor little thing. Quit hitting your head. You're going to get brain damage."

Take yesterday afternoon for instance. Brian gave Jillian a small piece of peach. No, that wasn't the best idea in the world, but we thought she might like a little bite. It wasn't quite smooshy enough for her because she gagged and then puked all over her pretty pink dress. "Oh Jillian." I found some wipes and start cleaning up the mess, but I was having trouble getting the pink dress off of her. In the meantime, she was squirming everywhere, not too concerned about being covered in puke. "Bah", she kept telling me. "Bah". I don't know what that means. Quit squirming. "Bah", puke on her hands and feet and legs. I finally remove her dress and cleaned her and the floor with the wipes. I put her in a new outfit. After all that she begins to crawl out of the kitchen only to hit the spot we just cleaned and fell on her face because it was still wet from the wipes. "Damn it Jillian. Come here. Let's get you out of here."

There was another incident with poor little Jillian that's worth mentioning. I was in the kitchen making dinner while her and Brian were in the front room. I hear Jillian start to fuss. Being her mom, I know this little fuss sounds like 'I'm stuck somewhere' fuss. I look out and see Brian smiling. "Brian, get that baby. Is she somewhere she can't get out of? What are you smiling about?" I walk in and her shirt is caught on the hinge of the entertainment center door. She's tugging and tugging trying to get herself free, but all she's really managing to do is stretch her shirt out. "Damn it Brian." He's so mean. He thought it was funny. She did not.

I actually say damn it to everyone. Jillian just gets herself in more 'damn it' situations than the others.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Double Dose

You get two posts out of me today. Aren't you lucky?

Anyway, I'm suppose to be setting up a date with two of my friends from work to go to martinis in the next couple of weeks for my birthday. It's not working out so well. One of them is other wise engaged on Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday and is going to be out of town the two Fridays I would have wanted to do it. That leaves Monday. Guess who isn't available on Mondays? Hmmm.

Here are my options. Go to martinis twice. Once on a Monday and once another day. Go to martinis with the friend I was orginally going to go to martinis with (we later invited the other friend to go) and then all get together for lunch. A dry lunch. Go to two martini dates and one lunch date. That sounds expensive. I don't know what to do! Ugh!

Coming Soon

Well sports fans, it's about that time. The day that I turn 30 is coming up. I usually can't wait for my birthday, but this time I'm not so eager. Regardless of all the gifts I'm sure will be showered upon me. (Ha, ha. That's a little joke.) I did tell Brian that for my 30th birthday I expected big gifts. And by big I mean expensive. I'm not all that certain I'll be getting expensive. Or maybe I will. Maybe I'll get big and expensive. I would love that. But, big and expensive in our house usually means a community gift. You know, one I'll have to share with everyone. At this point though, I think I wouldn't mind getting a community gift as long as it's the community gift I really, really want.

I usually get pretty nice gifts for my birthdays. I think Brian has finally vetoed my lists, though. The first few years I received everything on my lists. I think he's finally decided he won't look at my lists anymore. I feel this is some sort of punishment or a way of letting me know that I don't get everything I want. I've come to this conclusion because I made a Mother's Day gift list and he said I wasn't getting anything from the list, "because you don't always get to hand pick your gifts". Rude!

Okay, not really. There is something I really want to happen, but not necessarily for my birthday. However if it happens to happen around the time of my birthday it may be for my birthday. Am I being too vague? Sorry about that. I don't want to jinx anything, so I am unable to divulge any details for a couple of weeks. But I'm hoping to have news soon.

Anyway, my birthday is August 4th for all of you who want to wish me a happy birthday on my birthday. Hee, hee.

Brian asked if I wanted to take the day of my birthday off. I told him "hell no". That's the day my department will decorate my office with probably embarrassing items and stick an even more embarrassing picture up twenty times, and tease me all day about turning thirty and make me delicious treats. I wouldn't miss that for anything. Sheesh.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I Had My Outburst

So now you should go look at the phot0s I posted of Jordan's birthday. It was in November and I just came around to posting them, so I think they deserve a showing. There are only a few because for some reason we didn't take a lot of pics. I think Brian's parents have several, we were just slackers. That's all right. Go look.

Monday, July 10, 2006

I Can't Stand It

I am the most absent minded person I know. I'm probably the most absent minded person Brian knows. (At least that's what he tells me.) The other night I was making chicken kabobs on the BBQ. I left them on there for about 40 minutes too long. The had turned completely black and were obviously inedible. I just forgot they were cooking.

I have locked my keys in my car too many times to count. I have left the lights on in the parking lot at least four times. I say four because that is the number of people I remember coming out to jump start my car. It's probably more because the guys at the front desk have called me few times letting me know my lights are on.

I have forgot to pick up the one thing I went to the store for because it wasn't on the list. Of course, I walk out with several other items. Just not the one thing I need immediately.

I have forgot to call make and make an appointment for whatever I may need an appointment for. I have missed appointments and meetings because I just forgot about them.

More than a few times I've forgot to pack Brian's yogurt, even though I have packed his yogurt every morning since he started working with me.

One time, I forgot to put on my mascara.

Whenever I have the responsibility to feed the dog I forget.

I have called Riley, Darby and Darby, Jordan and Jordan, Jillian and Jillian, Chloe. I always call Brian, Riley even when I'm talking about him to people at work.

However, I must say that I have never in all my years of having children done this. I'm sorry, but I just can't believe that you can "forget" that your baby is in the car and not remember until 2 hours later. What kind of mother "forgets" their child. I will tell you it isn't a very good one. And believe me, what it comes to mother's making mistakes with their children, I think I'm pretty understanding considering that I make mistakes every day. But there is no way that I would ever, ever leave any of my children in 110 degree car to cook to crisp. Ever.

This mother disgusts me and it makes me sick that the news is sugar coating it as a horrible, tragic "mistake". No one should be able to make mistakes like that without paying consequences. Personally I think we should make the mother sit in a hot car for 2.5 hours. But, that's just me.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Here Is The Stupid Box of Legos

If you look closely you can see little toddlers playing and the recommended age.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Stupid Box of Legos

Every so often I clean out the kids rooms. I take out all the toys they no longer play with and organize the ones they still use. I put all the old toys in the garage where they either go into storage or off to Goodwill. Every year since we've lived in our house (about three years or so) I have tried to get rid of a certain box of Legos. They are ordinary, run of the mill Legos. But they're the big size. The ones for 1 1/2 + year olds. I figured when everyone turned three and up it was safe to get rid of them. Besides, they have the little Legos, for big kids.

So, every time I do one of these cleanings I put the box of Legos in the garage. And every time I do this it is only a matter of days before I find someone has brought the box of Legos back in. They don't bring in the other toys. No one ever says anything about the old Barbies or the Rescue Heroes. No one mentions the GI Joes or the little Star Wars guys. No, just those stupid Legos.

This is usually the scenario: I'm cleaning. I think "the kids have outgrown these Legos. I'm getting rid of them." I put them in the garage and go on my merry way. The next day, I see the huge Legos scattered about. I follow the trail into the boys' room. "Where did you guys get these Legos?" I ask, wondering if I had gone insane and imagined taking the Legos to the garage. Someone inevitably answers, "we found them in the garage. We don't know how they ended up there." I tell them I put them there and I get shocked and confused looks from three little kids all over the age of 1 1/2. "What? Why would you do that? We play with these all the time," as they're all sitting around building toy guns and forts. "Whatever", I tell them.

This has happened several times in the past three years. Several. Tuesday I once again cleaned the boys room to remove the toys cluttering underneath they're bed and closet. I take a look at the box of Legos and I hestitantly put them in the hallway to be taken outside. I knew I shouldn't have. I should have just put the box back on the shelf, but I thought 'maybe this time'.

Riley comes in from playing outside and asks, "what are you doing with all of these toys?"

I answer, "taking them to the garage. They're taking up way too much room."

"What!" he exclaims. "Even the box of Legos? We still use those. The baby plays with them all the time!"

Did I mention that I also put a huge box of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle paraphanalia out in the hall? Along with a huge assortment of little army men and an entire garbage bag full of stuffed animals? Those were sitting in the hall as well. But I didn't hear one word about those. Not one.

I Took A Break

Well, I don't know if any of you noticed, but I've been away since last Thursday. Not on a trip or out of town. Just home. With no internet. I'm back and I've noticed no one has missed me! Hmph! :)

Anyway I spent the week cleaning the house and hanging out with kids and working on my tan and riding bikes and doing a bunch of nothing. I'm relaxed and back to work. Thought I would post you a little hello. Because now I have to work on the three weeks of unopened mail, the 180 email messages and all that work stuff that I took a break from. Ugh! Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!