Calgon ... are you a mystery?

So I don't like to brag, but I pride myself on being a good mother. I take care of my children, the best I know how (what can I say I had a REALLY good teacher). They're fed, bathed, clothed, and loved. Granted they don't always get everything that they want, but they don't want for anything that they need.

For some reason, today has been a really, and I stress on REALLY, trying day for me and my mothering skills. My oldest daughter, has been testing every single nerve I have in my body. Not sure why, but she has. I don't know what it is about her today, but she's making me want, no .. she's making me NEED a stiff adult beverage.

Everything, from the moment she walked into the door from school, has been an argument from her. And if the argument didn't turn out in her favor, and lets face it, it never does, she started whining. And I'm not talking a little bit of tolerable whining either, I'm talking .. open the flood gates, my life is over, you might as well kill me now whining. Every little thing. It started with dinner.

My kid, is the pickiest eater I know. She doesn't like ... well .. anything. If it's not macaroni and cheese, or chicken nuggets, then she doesn't want to eat it. And I will tell you another thing, she has Hightower blood, so she's strong willed. She puts up a GREAT fight. She should DEFINITELY be on the debate team. Anyway ... back to the matter at hand.

We had spaghetti for dinner tonight. Now, I'm sure you can guess where this is going, Mikaila doesn't like to eat spaghetti with spaghetti sauce on the noodles. She prefers it plain noodle style, with a little bit of butter melted onto the hot noodles. OK, that's usually not a problem, however, tonight I didn't make dinner. Her Aunt did. So about ten minutes or so before dinner was ready, she started asking if she had to eat spaghetti with the sauce on it. Seriously ten minutes before we even were ready to eat, she was complaining about her dinner.

Her Aunt, thank goodness, knows how picky Mikaila is, and left some plain noodles for her. One crisis (in Mikaila's mind) averted. So we finished dinner, and I told Mikaila that she needed to have a spelling test, since she's having one tomorrow at school. She misspelled almost every word, so I made her write each word, there are 15 of them, 3 times each. She whined and cried for about 20 minutes because that was "toooooo haarrrd mommmmyyyyyy".

Finally she finishes, and she takes another spelling test, which she did much better on by the way, and it's now time to take a bath. To save time, and my back, I usually bathe my girls together (on nights that Mikaila doesn't take a shower). Tonight, being one of those nights, I go in to start the bath water, and Mikaila starts to complain about not wanting to take a bath with her little sister. Too bad, get into the tub. First, the water was too hot. Tears for that one. Then, the water was too cold, bring on more tears. Next, it was "mommy you got water in my face" when I'm trying to wash her hair ... bring on even more tears.

Bath time OVER!! Thank GOD! Now comes Mikaila's favorite part. Did you sense the sarcasm in my type?? She absolutely HATES it when I have to do anything with her hair. And I have to dry it, because of the type of hair cut that she has. Yup .. you guessed it. More tears. Finally we finish that (twenty minutes later) and she started crying about the clothes she wanted to wear to school tomorrow. Oy vey kid. You're killing me smalls!

So hear it is ... 7:30pm, and she's finally in bed. So I ask this ... is this whole Calgon crap just that? Crap?! Or will it really take you away? If it will can someone FedEx me a box (or 10) pronto??

Stress ...

I really hate stress.

Stress is evil. Stress is bad. Stress .. is stress.

I hate it. Did I mention that already?

Everything in my life centers itself around stress. At least it seems that way sometimes.

Dan and I are going to be starting school in June. Or at least, we're HOPING to be starting school in June. We filled out all of the necessary paperwork in early February. About 3 weeks ago, Dan got notified that his application and FAFSA had been selected for verification. Of course it had. That's exactly our luck. That's just the way that things work out for us.

So we had to send in copies of our taxes and pay stubs, and yada yada yada. We did all of that, and he JUST got notified that everything had been processed and approved. Yay for him.

Now .. apparently mine has been selected for verification as well. That means, that all that information that we've already sent in, has to be sent in again. Lovely.

We have advanced registration for Summer term starting May 4th. We have to get cleared before we can do the advanced registration. Have to make that appointment. Note to self.

I have to go down today to drop off some paperwork for our health insurance. Hopefully I don't need an appointment for that. That would just throw my entire day off.

And to top it all off... I do not feel well at all. And no... I'm NOT pregnant. lol.

I wish I could just crawl back into bed and forget this day even started like it did. Oh well ...

Until next time ...

Overpriced Happy Times ...

So yesterday was a super nice day here in the beautiful state of Oregon. We were sitting around, itching to do something. We decided that we would take the 45 minute trip to the coast, and head to Florence.

For those that have never been to Florence, Oregon, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. We decided that we were going to go and check out the Sea Lion Caves. Now, based on the name of the place, I assumed that there would be caveS. Plural. We knew the price to get in was 12 bucks for adults, 8 for kids, and children 2 and under were free. Do the math right quick. 4 adults (at 12 bucks a piece) and 1 7 year old (at 8 bucks) equals, an over priced ticket.

We walked down three thousand steps (it seemed) and then had to continue walking, down the steepest walkway I've ever seen in my entire life. Well .. let me rephrase that. The walk DOWN the steepest walkway wasn't so bad. But coming back ... oy vey.

We then get to the sketchy-est elevator I've ever been on in my life. We have to get onto this elevator and descend 200 feet below the earth. Yes. 200 feet ... I dislike elevators very much. I have a big fear of them actually. So .. when I walked onto said sketchy elevator, and I could feel it sway with every person that stepped onto it .. I was super nervous.

Ok .. so we get 200 feet down, in the sketchy elevator ... and have to walk down another steep walkway. The smell at this point .. disgusting. It was horrible. Normally I love the coastal smell. The smell of the sea .. it's refreshing. This smell .. was anything but refreshing. It smelled like fermented poop. A bit descriptive I know .. sorry about that.

Anyway ... we're at the cave. Yes .. I said CAVE. No S. Not plural. It was a H-U-G-E cave, don't get me wrong, but the place was a bit deceiving. It's called the sea lion CAVES ... not the sea lion cave ... anyway. I digress.

There were a TON, and I mean a ton of sea lions in that cave. They were barking, and smelly, and huge. It was actually pretty neat to see. And then .. after looking for about 5 minutes .. we were done. You can only look at those things for so long.

We then decided that we needed to climb up about three thousand more steps so that we could see the lighthouse look out spot. It was beautiful. Totally worth the pain in climbing those steps. We got some great pictures, and then had to go back down the steps. Now with 2 strollers .. these steps pose a bit of a challenge.

We got down the steps, and then had to make our way back to the sketchy elevator. Back up the 200 feet. Remember the steepest walkway in the entire world .. yeah. It was now time to hike, and I literally mean hike, up that walkway. my thigh muscles are burning like a wildfire today.

Anyway ... we had a good time regardless. I'm really glad that we went. The kids really enjoyed it.

Now ... off to get ready for Church.

Until next time ...

Thumbs Up ... Part 2

So my entire point of my blog yesterday, was to talk about "Thumbs Up". My thoughts started coming faster than my fingers could type, and I got completely sidetracked. I guess that happens sometimes, with me especially.

Anyway .. back to my point.

I was talking about my daughter, Mikaila, and how well she seems to be adjusting to her new school. Her old school, in California, gave some little things for recognizing students that are caught being good, but it seemed like they were given out very sparsely. Apparently that is not the same with her new school.

Mikaila's very first day of school in Oregon, was a nervous day for her. She was concerned that she wasn't going to be able to make any friends, and that she would be alone on the playground, and at lunch. Pretty normal concerns for a kid that's starting a new school.

Anyway, My husband and I dropped her off, and sent her on her way. The rest of my day went by fairly slowly. I was thinking about how she was doing all day long. When we went to pick her up, my nerves were getting the best of me. I was super anxious to hear all about how her day had gone.

It seemed like forever had passed, but she FINALLY came out with the rest of her class. I noticed that there was a little piece of yellow paper in her hand, that it looked like she was trying to hide from me. Of course I automatically assume that she had gotten in trouble. Why I assumed that I don't know. Mikaila is NOT a bad kid, she's actually pretty well behaved in most settings. My plan was to see how long it would take her to show me that little piece of paper.

We get into the car, and she precedes to tell me all about her day. That she had made not one single friend, but 5 friends. At this point, I couldn't take it anymore. I asked her about the little piece of paper she was holding. She handed it to me, and I felt very foolish for thinking she had gotten into trouble. It had a picture of a hand making a "thumbs up" and said, "You've been caught being good".

I have to admit that the tears of a proud mother, started to flow a little bit. I asked her how she got it, and she said that at lunch, the teachers were trying to get the kids to settle down. So she put up her "peace sign" and got a bunch of other kids to follow her example. I was so proud. I am constantly impressed by that little girl. She makes me so proud every single day. She's such an "old soul" .. it sometimes seems that she's much older than her 7 years.

Anyway she has continued to get a "thumbs up" card almost every single day since her first day. One day, she brought home 3 of them.

Never underestimate your children. If you allow them to, they'll surprise you every single day .. sometimes, more than once.

Until Next Time ...

Thumbs Up ...

So one of my biggest worries about making this huge move, was how my daughter, Mikaila, would do with moving to a new school in the middle of the school year. Back in California she attended the same school since Kindergarten. This year, she absolutely LOVED her teacher (and in all honestly so did her father and I). So naturally, we were concerned with how she'd handle the switch.

So far, she's doing outstanding. She has really settled into her new school environment rather nicely. She seems to really like her teacher, but there is a downside to that believe it or not. Apparently her teacher has been in the process of adopting a child, from another country, and that adoption is about to go through. Yay for her!! That's awesome!! Here's the downside. This Friday, April 9th, is teacher's last day for this school year. She and her husband have to go and get their new baby. Again .. yay for them. However, Mikaila now has to adapt to yet another new teacher. Her third one in a single school year. The plus side, is that Mikaila has proved to be a resilient child. She's pretty much been able to adapt to everything that's been thrown at her, and for that I'm grateful. She does concern me sometimes though, because she can be a little bit of a worry wort. But, that's a whole different day.

Chloe, she's my little handful. One positive about our move, is that she has kicked her bottle habit. No more bottles for Chloe. Yay Chloe!!! We started out just giving one to her right before she went to bed. That lasted for about a week. Then, one night, when she was sick actually, she wanted a bottle. I didn't want to give her a bottle of milk, cause she had a fever. Anyone that knows my Chloe knows that when she has a fever, we do NOT give her milk. It will make her so sick. So, instead of giving her her bottle that night, I gave her a cup of water. It satisfied her, MUCH to my surprise. So we went with it. Never looked back. Bottles are bye bye. Woohoo!! Now we just have to get rid of the binkys. And it doesn't help that we lost our backups, and had to buy new backups today. Oy.

I guess we'll tackle that bridge when we absolutely need to.

Until next time ...

Testing and no sleep .. don't mix well

So on Wednesday (yeah I know, that was days ago) I went and took the placement testing for school.

I'm planning on going into the Nursing program, and there are certain prerequisites that I need to take. The testing was for the math and English portions of those classes. I needed to test into English 121, and Math 95.

Now, anyone that knows me, knows that math .. is NOT my forte. I did what I needed to do with English. Tested into English 121. Woohoo Yay me!! Math however, that's a different story. I only tested into Math 20. Now, I'm OK with that, but here's what that means. Once I complete Math 20, I will have to either take Math 60 &65, or skip those 2, and take Math 70 (which I found out today is a combination of 60 & 65). Then I get to take 95. So .. I've got some hefty work that's laid out on my plate, but that's OK. I'll get through it, like I always do.

The thing that sucked, and maybe played a role in how well I DIDN'T do, was the fact that the night prior I had MAYBE an hour of sleep. My little one decided that that was the night she was going to wake up every 45 minutes for no reason whatsoever. So my alarm (A.K.A, my husband) woke me up at 6:30 Wednesday morning, and Chloe kept right on snoring. Little turd.

Oh well .. Que Sara Sara I suppose.

Now the countdown for the start of classes begin. I'm so excited, yet nervous at the same time. I can't wait!!!

Until next time ...