In Honor of Courtney....

I present my menu plan for the week!!! Are ya scared yet? Seriously, we have such a busy week ahead of us that I'm proud to know what dinner is every night, even if it's not a terribly balanced week nutritionally!

Sunday - Hamburger Helper skillet meal (everything ready from the frozen section, just heat) - Cheeseburger Macaroni
Monday - Herb Chicken with rice in the crock pot
Tuesday - Spaghetti
Wednesday - Fellowship dinner at church (beef tips)
Thursday - Cheesy Italian Shells
Friday - Camping - steaks and corn on the cob

Quick Boring Update

Sorry -- we've just been REALLY busy. The trip to Las Vegas kicked our butts, and we are still recovering. I've got to travel for work today, so I'm leaving early, and getting home late.

Connor has a mild case of croup, but the steroids kicked it immediately. Duncan continues to demonstrate tween obnoxiousness. Scouts and soccer are in full swing, so our evenings are busy. Connor's team lost 0-3 to the Pirates this past Saturday. He had a field trip to Vulcan materials quarry on Monday. Yesterday they mailed their "Flat Stanley" letters out. Hopefully today his class will get a postcard from Flat Stanley's visit to Las Vegas!

The kittens continue to grow. Charles introduced Morgan to her first pedicure last night, and those little raptor claws are much shorter now. He said he'll need help getting Brigit to hold still for hers.

More this weekend -- I don't have another free evening until Friday!!!

Thank you Flickr

Go here to see the majority of my Vegas pictures uploaded to FLICKR. I haven't labelled all of them yet, but you'll get the idea.

Teaser

Our Thursday night in Las Vegas!

Viva Las Vegas!!!

Holy cow... Charles is a horror movie freak, and he surfs a website called FearNet. He entered a contest to win a trip to Las Vegas to see the world premiere of Resident Evil: Extinction. Well he woke me up at 2am last night to let me know he won!!! So Thursday morning at 7:30 am a car picks us up, and takes us to the airport for our whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. We have fabulous friends who are keeping our kids Thursday evening for us, and we'll return home from our trip at 10:00 p.m. Friday night.

WooHOO. So what's fun to do in the middle of the night in Las Vegas?!

First Soccer Game

Dragons 5, Rangers 4

GO DRAGONS!!! They did awesome... they played their positions (new this year), worked as a team, and listened to their coach. I'm such a proud soccer mom!

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Thursday

Fall is going to be very short at this pace! Connor had his first yellow light at school for playing in the water in the bathroom. He wasn't terribly upset about it, and neither was I. We'll see how he feels on Friday when he doesn't get his reward for the week since it wasn't all green lights.

Last night we went to fellowship, and Connor had his first night in the Children's Choir (he was previously in the preschool choir). I hope he really enjoys it. He had to draw a picture in Sunday school of what God called him to do... he told Ms. Lynn that God called him to sing.

Our Weekend

Here we are, "official" members of Ardmore UMC!! That took up alot of our Sunday, obviously. We spent alot of Saturday shopping for clothes for the kids. Our big excursion was to the $2 theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Both of us really enjoyed it. Oh, and new kitten pictures up on the photo blog!

No Neglect Intended

I've been slammed this week! Soccer has started for Connor, and we had two nights of practice this week. I made it to the gym on Wednesday, my mother-in-law is here until Sunday, and we are (finally) joining the church on Sunday so that's a big deal. I'm taking a 30 day class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, and I'm behind on my homework for the week, and the anniversary crop at Scrap Addict starts this weekend. Busy busy busy! New pictures are up on the photo blog!

Weekend

Hmmm, it was a very VERY busy week at work last week. It isn't going to slow down anytime soon either.

Charles had his sleep study Thursday night, and then another Friday night to titrate the CPAP. Hopefully they'll get him his soon and we'll see some improvements. The kids went with Charles to have lunch with his mother today, and then they went shopping for church clothes. We are joining the church here next weekend, so we're getting ready for that.

The kittens are growing like little weeds and cute as a button. I posted a picture of Morgan attacking my purse on the photo blog.

First Day of School

Ahhh, the day every parent waits for... BACK TO SCHOOL! They are wearing their school tshirts and waiting for the bus (that was super late).

When it rains...

What a day... first day of school among other things. The bus did not show up by 8 minutes until school starting, so we ended up taking the kids to school. In the afternoon, it was 45 minutes late getting the kids home. In between Charles calls me and tells me he's having bad chest pressure and could I come take him to the emergency room?! He's spending the night in observation, and I'm headed there this morning once the kids are on the bus to be there while he supposedly has a stress test.

New picture of Morgan on the photo blog.

Brigit & Morgan

So from the last post, I hope you gathered we brought home two kittens Saturday. They have been (tentatively) named Morgan (black) and Brigit (gray). They are absolutely adorable. Morgan is just a little puff of fur. They are six weeks old. Morgan is having a bit more separation anxiety than Brigit, but she is starting to rub on us and purr. Brigit is the dominant one.. when I feed them she stands over the food plate and trys to push Morgan away. They pounce and run and chase... although where Dexter would make himself into an ankle bracelet, Morgan is more of a toe ring.

My Saturday

I'm Proud of Me

I've chronicled on here how I've started working with an endocronologist to get my blood sugars under control.  We started in mid-June.  At my mid-July appointment, my readings were better, but I hadn't lost a pound.  Today I went back again... and I had lost 13 lbs!!!  Yay ME!

Confessions and a sigh of relief

I am soooo relieved... my camera has been MIA since August 5th, and I just couldn't figure out how I had lost it when I so distinctly remember packing it when we came home from Charlotte. What was worse, is I hadn't dumped my memory card all summer so my ENTIRE summer of pictures was in the camera still.

Relief... it was in a clothes basket in the dining room. Don't ask why or how it was there, just be relieved with me!

Friday

PMS anyone?  Shew, you know you are moody when you are on your own last nerve!!!  Still, it's definitely TGIF here... it has been a very long week, including an 11 hour day on Tuesday, a bad migraine on Wednesday, and stupid people everywhere today.

What's new since I posted on Monday?  Charles had an initial appointment with a sleep clinic -- they are going to do a sleep study in about two weeks to see if he has sleep apnea.    It's worth checking I think.   The kids got to go to "backup childcare" on Wednesday, which they LOVE.   Then they got to go to Chick Fil A for dinner to meet some family friends, so it was a good day for them.  They leave tomorrow with Dad for a week at grandma's... their last fling before school starts on the 27th.

Monday Ramblings

I made good use of my time before leaving work this morning to go visit and comment on most of the blogs in my list.  I've felt guilty lately that folks visit me and comment, and I don't return the favor.  I try at least once a week to run down my list of blogs in my favorites and visit them all; I've been slacking lately but no more -- I've caught up!  I always am flattered someone stopped by, so I try to show people I care too.  Several of you aren't posting anything new though... get cracking! (Ha, ha)

We had a pretty lazy weekend (or at least I did).  I caught up on a week's worth of Big Brother episodes on DVR, did three altered composition books for Charles, filled everyone's pill minders for the week, played some ToonTown and Asheron's Call... did a small run to the grocery store, and generally was lazy.  The kids spent alot of time playing Spyro on the playstation.

I have to give kudos to the doctor that oversees Charles' meds for his bipolar... he changed them again this month because he's still having mood swings.  I am so thrilled that the doc is unwilling to settle for just being "better" and is shooting for "well".  It's a drug Charles has been on before, and he's had some side effects from it before, but the doctor says they'll watch closely and deal with that if it comes up.

School starts back two weeks from today -- YIPPEE!!  I think having a routine back and less time to be bored will help both kids.  Plus scouts & soccer will start back as well, so we'll have busy evenings again.  I expect Connor will have more homework this year so we'll have two at the dining room table doing homework after school.   Charles and the boys are headed Sunday to Charlotte for one last visit with Dot Dot, so they'll miss the open house at school.  I'm a little worried about Connor starting school on Monday with no idea who his teacher is or where his classroom/desk is, but I also know he will pout if he can't go to Dot Dot's so I'll go scope it out for him.

Friday

What a LONG week it has been, don't you think?  I believe it's hit triple digits every day this week, I so love August in the Carolinas.  (Not!)   My saving grace is that I go to work before it gets too hot, and my commute home is short.  I am not a summer person!!

I feel so bad lately, I've had so much fun reading other people's blogs, but haven't posted much on my own... I feel guilty for not reciprocating.  So hopefully I'll be able to leave something interesting for you to read besides my pet woes.

Speaking of that... no sign of Dexter.  I went to the animal shelter, and he's not there.  They put all strays up on their website, so I am watching daily.  We now have him up on a couple of lost pet sites with a picture, so I feel I've done the best I can.  Charles and I both are very pessimistic about getting him back.  We just wish we knew what happened.

What's been up with me?  We celebrated Duncan's 11th birthday last week.  He got a new playstation game (Spyro:  The Beginning), a transformer, another year of Zoo Books, an art set, a trip to see the play "The Lion King", some Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and a pocket knife.  I had been asked before why he didn't have a pocket knife, and I always answered honestly "because he hasn't asked for one."  Well, he finally asked.  We haven't opened it yet, but I'll start working with him on proper use and care of a knife so he can get his whittling chip card and carry it to scout events.  He also got cash, and had a fun trip to Toys R Us this past weekend to spend it on toy dragons.  Connor is quite jealous.

Last weekend I got to go to the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention in Charlotte, NC.  Two glorious days of scrapbook classes and a vendor faire.   I took seven classes this year, the most I've taken since I started going.  Two were by Quick Quotes, "A Thing or Two about Boys" and "My Big Fat Chunky Book".  I got four 12x12 pages out of the first one, and a table-top book thingy from the second.  I need to finish the chunky book.  Michelle who teaches the QQ classes was a delight, as always.  I took "In Love with Basic Gray", which was a card class.  I somehow didn't realize they would be all "love" themed, but they were cute cards, and had a lot of dimension using chipboard.  Not my favorite class, but ok.  Deluxe Designs sponsored a "Treasured Secrets" composition book class.  Did you know Deluxe Designs is closing???  Cute kit, and I actually finished my book in class (barely).   Charles commented that he wouldn't mind if I covered a few for him.  Wow... now that's a complement coming from a guy.   They always give you extras in their kit, so I feel like I got a good value on that one.    "He's an Extreme Boy" used the new junkitz extreme line to make an accordion album.  It must be a hot line of paper, as I now see it in a kit at Scrap Addict, and I've seen layouts in my latest copy of Simple Scrapbooks.  I'm not a trendy scrapper, usually I'm not into the "hot" items, but for once I'm on the bleeding edge.  Not my favorite paper line, but a cute project, and almost  finished.  This class recommended a lot of inking and distressing, which I'm not really into.  I've now started using more ink, but I am still not into sanding my papers etc to look old.

I took a class called "Boys Go Zoom" by a new company, Cara Miller Designs (www.caramiller.com).  She does board book kits, period.  Cute cute cute.  It used a paper line I had never seen before, Dream Street Papers.  She was really personable, and gave some good instruction.  She has a kit club (like everyone else these days), and I am pondering trying it out.  These would make cute gifts.  Last class was the stinker, "Greetings and Salutations" sponsored by Xyron.  WHAT A RIPOFF!!!   The rep walked in three minutes late and casually informed us that the instructor they had hired didn't show up.  The class was using their personal cutting system (PCS) machine, so we had to drag all of those out, and wait for them to set up the power cords for it.  Alot of the machines didn't work right, or didn't have the right cartridges.  Our kit (this was a 2 hr, $27 class) consisted of 10 pieces of cardstock to fold over to make card bases, ten squares of cardstock to put in the machine to do your cutting, and five short pieces of ribbon.  The class advertised making 10 cards.  They told us they weren't going to "teach" us 10 cards but rather let us "play" with the machines.  I also went back and read the description, and someone was supposed to win a PCS during the class.  Ha!  I walked out after an hour.  Someone who stayed later told us they took the machine out of her hands at the 90 minute mark because they had to be "cleaned up on time".  I think everyone wrote a blistering evaluation to CK about that class.  I have to give props to SEI though.  It was their paper used in the class, and I got a nice email last night apologizing for my experience and asking for my address so they could send me a free tote.  Lesson learned, NO xyron classes for me ever again.

The vendor faire was as always, overload of the senses.  I was excited to see Technique Tuesday there -- it's always fun to be able to TOUCH stuff before you buy.  I bought two sets of acrylic stamps from DJ Inkers -- they had a CUTE alpha that I got as a show special.  Quick Quotes always gives you a free quote per class, so I got those two (plus some others).  I found some ribbons, and some toppers, and some die cuts from the deluxe designs booth.  They had their color blocking templates (pages & cards) on major clearance, so I got several card templates.  My biggest impulse buy was a Croppin Companion binder -- basically something to organize your stuff for crops.  I found it at half price at a both, and out came my wallet!!  I was nowhere near as big a spender as some of the folks I met.  

Can you believe it's almost time for school to start?  My kids start two weeks from Monday.   Duncan will be in 5th grade, Connor in 1st.   That means it's time for soccer & scouts to start as well.  Busy busy busy....