Happy Birthday Maddie!!!

Here are the pics from a busy day for Maddie's birthday party! We had a blast and are so happy that Amanda was able to be there to do pics for us! I didn't take the time to put them in any certain order, but here you go! (yes, I made the costume and the cake)!!!Yaya's angels
Maddie taking a hit at the pinata, but watch out momma!

Toni and Maddie!

Ryan, Kenziem Mom, Me, Maddie, Spongebob, Carol, Roy all have to pose for the blended family pic LOL. It is nice to have a sponge in the family LOLOL!

I made this cake on Saturday for her party. I had ordered a cake then decided last minute to just make it myself. I was satisfied with how it came out!

Shelby and Spongebob
Riley and Spongebob
Time for presents
Nana's angels!

Nana and Maddie
My baby girl!
Ryan, Kenzie, my Mom, Me, Maddie, and Spongebob take time out for a pic.

Maddie meets Spongebob! She was so upset because the pinata was coming apart and she didn't want her spongebob to be torn up!

"Wait there!" in this pic, we were trying to talk her into hitting the pinata! Not much luck there!

"I think I will take your favorite hat from you. Besides, It's my Party!!!" LOL

Maddie wasn't sure about the box coming to life and talking to her, so I had to hold her just to get a pic of her with him!
Kenzie and her pose with Spongebob.
Singing to Maddie, she did what lots of babies do and got really really shy! We all but had to coax her to come out of my shoulder just so she could see the wind blow out her candle!!!
Grillmaster "My Dewwock" is hard at work doing what men do! Maddie has dubbed Derrick "My Dewwock" and at one time she didn't really wanna have anything to do with him, now he is her best bud!
Ryan and Yaya havin fun at Maddie's 3rd birthday!!!

cakes cakes cakes

i am going to be really busy through next wednesday... if i post at all, it will likely be sugar induced... i had two cakes tonight... i have two due on monday and then one big one due on wednesday... another on the 16th, one on the 25th of june... three baby shower cakes this summer... not one but two wedding shower cakes and a bachelorette cake (these are all before the end of august! i got busy in a hurry!

busy

sunday is maddie's birthday party. this week i will be really busy, so i may take a little blog break, but promise to fill you all in as i can. also, i have four cakes to design, a dress to buy and two babyshowers to plan. a graduation party on saturday evening to boot! update: maddie is going on the potty more and more on her own thank goodness. kenzie is missing school and she only had one day off. work has been increasingly like a psych ward this month. and that is about that.

this week

has been a little crazy...

it is getting close to the end of the school year for Mackenzie. I am trying to get everything together for her for the end of school year activities. the school was on a lock down the other day... I have been dubbed the "yeller" outside of back gate. As we wait for our children earlier this week, a car came speeding through the school zone, so I yelled at them to slow down. Must have caught them off guard, because they stopped in the middle of the road and gathered themselves. I as do other parents don't feel like it is fair for them to speed through the zone and put our children at risk. i have made several calls this week for various things... i have more calls early next week to make... maddie has made some progress with potty training. she has been doing some going on her own and it is getting closer to her being trained. she is able to go on the potty, we just have to get her to go on a regular basis. she is very sporatic. i am in the middle of making the sponge bob costume (it has been raining for a week) i can't paint it outside because of the rain, so I ended up laying a drop cloth down in the garage so I can paint it... I am about half way through with painting the yellow on the box. i have managed to keep myself awake after the kids go to sleep all week long enough to read well into the night. I have finished the second book of the twilight series and love it!!!

My baby

turned three today! it's hard to believe that she isn't a baby anymore! if you ask her, she has said she's a big girl! she goes on the potty sometimes... (LOL) and fights with her sister (and wins LOL) she is such a tom boy! she loves climing trees, etc. maddie started life fighting to survive and now we are so blessed everyday by her sillyness! thank God he had his watchful eye on our baby!

Heading to an appointment

Although today is my day off, I told Renee that I would come in this morning to take a patient out to an appointment. It will probably be a short day for me, but all in all, I am working again on my day off. This means I won't have a real day off again until next friday! I am working both days this weekend and so it puts me on a long stretch, but I don't really mind since the money is good.


GREAT NEWS:

Ryan and I both got raises yesterday at work. Putting Ryan at 12/hr and me at 12.25/hr. This was totally cool! In addition to that they are giving us retro pay for this raise since it was late getting to us. Ryan's is almost 4 months late and mine was 1 month late.

Kenzie is doing great. She asked me for a word search book while we were at the Dollar Tree, so I let her get one. I didn't think she would like it because word searches can sometimes be quite hard to do, but she is loving it and doing very well with it!

Maddie seems to be doing much better. I am thinking she had like a 24 hour bug because she is not coughing like she was and no runny nose. No fever either!

Ryan is going to get the kitchen ready for me while I am gone so I can have that done tonight while he is bowling with Kevin.

Kenzie brought home a note from school. She said there will be NO MORE HOMEWORK this year. I am not really happy about that, but that's ok because she doesn't know it but Momma is getting her a super workbook tonight and gonna do homework every day with her from that. Not to mention our daily routine has now consisted of playing school in one way or another. She is loving it and we are making learning fun for her. She also said that she got enough stickers on the poster at school to get to go to the Ice Cream Party! That was awesome. I don't know the details, but I do know that if they get enough stickers, they get a party.

And I am off to get in the shower so I can be ready to go to work on time. Have a blessed day and will be back later if I find anything to blog about. :)

checking things off the to do list

i feel like today i was able to get quite a bit accomplished. i have:

gone through most of the unopened e mails in my inbox. (i have been neglecting my e mails lately and this is not a good thing but like the fly lady says, this clutter is easily taken care of by simply hitting the delete key)

i went to work and was sent home since i am working this weekend and it looks like i may have a double on saturday and single on sunday... yay i will end up with over time if it all works out for me the way i am hoping it will... always depends on if renee catches what my plan is before or after the shifts start lol. she unfortunately caught today and sent me packing. ryan didn't make it back to work to pick me up, so i had an hour walk to the house, which wasn't bad at 7 in the morning, and i got my exercising done for the day... so that was another thing off of the daily list.

i tended to a sick maddie all day. she isn't feeling much better, she is really suffed up so she is getting mucinex to help with the congestion and when she has her meds she does better. i just feel so bad for the babe.

i finished painting the hallway and the girls bathroom.. it is looking really good. wednesday i will be finishing the living room and kitchen. that will conclude the painting that has to be done before maddie's party.

i went through the party tote and was able to start putting together the goody bags. i just need to pick up a few more things for those and that will be done.

i made a list of things yet to get for the party.

looked up the directions to make a diaper cake because since my friend theresa is having her babyshower in august, i told her my gift to her would be the diaper cake and the baby shower cake (to eat). so I have to work on planning all of that out and I know that diaper cakes aren't really that hard to make, so this should be fun.

i played school with kenzie at the whiteboard today and had so much fun! i haven't had that much fun with her while she was doing homework in a long time. it was nice to be a kid for a while. she played school from the time she got home until about 10 minutes ago, she finally crashed!

it seems like i am forgetting some of the things i did today, so with that i will go to bed since i am feeling kind of exhausted...

poor baby

maddie woke up crying last night around 3 am, so I was happy when renee decided to send me home today since i am working the weekend both days... she is now sleeping... and has been for 2 hours. i think she decided "if amanda can be sick so can i" she has a little cough and runny nose, but she was running a little fever this morning... ibuprophen and mucinex took care of the symptoms, but you can still tell she isn't feeling well..

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why Did God Make Mothers?

1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the
back of her head.

I got this in my e mail and decided I would share it with all of my blogger friends... I especially liked the ones about plastic surgery and "diet, maybe blue"!

Unknown Author

Dear Lord, it's such a hectic day
With little time to stop and pray
For life's been anything but calm
Since You called on me to be a mom
Running errands, matching socks
Building dreams with building blocks
Cooking, cleaning, and finding shoes
And other stuff that children lose
Fitting lids on bottled bugs
Wiping tears and giving hugs
A stack of last weeks mail to read
So where's the quiet time I need?
Yet when I steal a minute, Lord
Just at the sink or ironing board
To ask the blessings of Your grace
I see then, in my small one's face
That you have blessed me
All the while
And I stop to kiss
That precious smile

-- Unknown

amanda needs prayer

i am sure you remember last year when amanda went into the hospital for an intestinal blockage... well i got a call last night and she is back in the hospital with another blockage... it has been almost a year since the last one, but i just wanted all of my friends to remember her in prayer as it is very painful and they have her on some heavy pain killers to keep her out of pain, but it sends her for a mental loop... she said "high as a kite" in reference to the pain killers they have her on, so just do me a favor and keep her in your prayers.


thanks and god bless you all

dawn

Obey your parents

So, I am approaching a new technique with Kenzie who has been rebelling yet again, and I know that part of it is because we are not consistent with her, but I am also trying to really teach her the way of the Lord, so tonight before dinner, I told her we needed to have a little bible study. I read to her:

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Ephesians 6:1. I then proceeded to explain to her that when we obey mommy and daddy it is as if we are obeying God, but when we disobey, we are disobeying God, and we don't want to disobey God do we? and she replied with "no, Mommy, we need to obey God" it was such a precious moment. I am trying to make sure that I don't loose my temper with her while I teach her with the help of God that she needs to obey me and Ryan. She will get it after a few times.

Maddie has begun stripping completely right before proceeding to go to the potty. She doesn't like doing it on the potty, so we are in full potty training mode. I have to get ryan on board though because we only just started this about a 1/2 hour ago when she decided she needed to poo on my floor! Yucky! at least it was the tile floor though :). it cleaned up nicely and then she was told to go sit on her potty and try to go potty, she tried, but i wasn't expecting her to do anymore since afterall she had relieved herself on my white tile floor! not fun... I will be trying her every 2 hours from now until she gets the jest of it. so at 8 pm just before bed, she will be back on the potty... then i will have to have ryan start the every two hour schedule tomorrow and go from there...

i am looking into getting the hooked on phonics because as tracy from work said, it can't do any harm to try it... i will definately let you all know how that goes with her this summer....

it's a tough one....

As many of you know, we have been fighting a long hard battle with getting Kenzie the help she deserves at school, but for those of you who don't know the battle, here is a quick run through:

When Kenzie was 2 she started attending preschool just a couple days a week just for socialization. I noticed that she wasn't speaking as clearly as the other children so I asked her teacher if it was something I should be concerned about because I wanted to get on top of it. I was told she was only two and that I should wait to have any concern. I didn't stop there. We moved to Indiana, and the next year, I again came to the preschool meeting in December asking the same thing getting the same outcome, so I got her registered and pulled her out of private preschool, waited while I fought with the public school system about getting her into the school. The teacher actually booted a child who rarely came out of the program so that they could accept kenzie. Shew.. One hurdle finally cleared. Upon Kenzie starting to ride the bus, I could see that she was loving this new school. I e mailed often with the teacher and learned that my concern for Kenzie wasn't so far fetched! We had a meeting and the teacher informed me that she was having a phycho-educational evaluation completed on Mackenzie, but that since it was so late in the year, it would be performed over summer break. This was a relief, at least something was going to be done. After the Evaluation, we moved once again but not out of state. Kenzie had to be bussed about 45 minutes to her new school, and there the evaluation would be put into place. She did very well in the class and loved her teacher. As the year progressed, we learned that we would be able to move back to florida. This wasn't something that we had counted on, but had hoped would eventually happen. Before the end of that school year and before our move, Kenzie had her second evaluation and I learned that in the state of Indiana, if a child has a Developmental Delay, that tag has to be dropped for the Kindergarten year. We had hopes that it would be picked back up when the Florida school did their evaluation. That didn't happen. The school in Florida adopted the I E P that Indiana had instead of doing their own evaluation of her. So, now here we sit entering the last month of her Kindergarten year and I had a conference this morning with her teacher (yaya attended with me). The teacher and the reading resource teacher were both there. In a nutshell, they said that if Kenzie is to continue recieving the help that we all know she needs, they have to send her on to first grade because if she is held back, she will be evaluated at Kindergarten level and not at her age level therefore giving them false results. This means that if she stays in kindergarten, she will likely pass all of the evals at that level. They are wanting to send her on to first grade to get a true sense of where she is at. This is all still waiting on an observation from someone coming in to see Kenzie in the classroom. This person was supposed to have already been there this week, but hasn't made it in. So, I am torn. Do I rejoice because Kenzie is going on to 1st grade, or do I cry because I know in my heart that she can't handle the first grade work? It is just such a hard situation for all of us and I don't want to see my child get frustrated at school because she loves school so much right now I wouldn't want to have her go from loving school to hating it.. I fear that the work load will just be too much for her next year, but we will have to do what we can in order to get her the help she needs although we know that she can't handle it, it also means that we have to be even more on top of her next year!

been a week that's for sure

monday i started by calling the school and leaving a message for the teacher to call me...
i got a call on tuesday afternoon as i walked kenzie and zoey home with me and maddie. i learned that the teacher may not have answers for me on friday (at the conference). she is finally having kenzie observed to decide if she can handle first grade work (this is something that a lot of us have thought should have been done earlier in the year). I also learned that even though I am an approved volunteer, I have to go through the volunteer coordinator to find out where I can volunteer (somethign that i found wierd). Wednesday, I called the volunteer coordinator to find out that as long as the teacher knows i am comming, I can go to the office, get my name tag, and then go on up to her classroom. Ok, so I got one thing straightened out. Now I just have to make the teacher aware that I will be at the school every other wednesday and every other friday. So, I will be in Kenzie's class volunteering weekly, from now on. It is late in the year, but I plan on being there every year from now on volunteering at the school.

madison has had a really bad girl day. we won't go into that. work hasn't been kind to me either.

The weekend....

was spent watching my lil fish out of water have a blast. She swam all weekend with Shelby and Riley. We also had a photo op with Amanda. Here are the pics she did of us. I will number them and wanted to know what your favorites are... Comment me with your favorite of the family. 1. out by the lake... 2. Having fun...3. Sitting in the yard...
4. Pyramid in color
5. Pyramid in black and white

There are more, but I wanted to get the chance to get rid of the ones I didn't like for whatever reason before I put them on here... Can't wait to get your opinions.

Fun times away from home

We got here to Derrick and Amanda's house around 11:30. I would guess that by 11:45, the kids were in the pool! Maddie from what Ryan said just walked right in! With water wings on of course, but it kind of freaked her out a little bit, so she decided to stay out of the water. That wasn't the case for Kenzie. She had her water wings on along with Alley the Aligator (as I call it). It's a floatie that goes around your waist to help you stay afloat. By the 3rd trip to the pool, Kenzie was swimming the length of the pool without Alley. Just the water wings. I will upload the pics and video later, since I forgot to bring my adapter for the camera. We have done family pics since being here and I must say AMANDA COX ROCKS! We are so fortunate to have Amanda as family. She is so good to us all! (And Derrick too!). The kids are running around the house while the rest of the house wakes up. We will be heading home this afternoon, but I wanted to give everyone an update....

quiet house

ryan took the girls to roy and carol's house earlier since carol is watching them so we can do this inservice thing in the morning.. hope to pull out by 9 am so we can be in orlando by lunch time... it has been so quiet here that i have not known what to do with myself lol

back to the grind

so, i have been not updating daily, but i am trying to get back to doing it. a few things:

*kenzie rode the motorcycle with roy and carol today. something they have spent 5 years trying to get her to do. go kenzie!

*i am having a meeting with the school this week. will update you on how that goes

*carol is gonna sneak away from life and have lunch with kenzie one day this week at school.

*maddie is my usual helper... wanting to mop the kitchen again... grrr.

*ryan is working... status quo there...

*CONGRATS TO BROOKLYN! Maria delivered baby Elizabeth yesterday. Thank God for a healthy and happy baby and momma! (you can see maria's blog for that info... thanks to beth spencer for the updates on there)

*looks like we are heading to orlando for the weekend. yeah. a weekend away is much needed.

*i have fooled ed at work into thinking i am cutting back my hours... just not working as many long days as i did the week that he thought i needed to be psycologically evaluated to see if i was sane or not. he laughed when i said that i had asked our psych doc for an eval and he turned me down LOL!

*i have been working in activities a lot lately. it is a nice change, but would like to be on 300 or 400 better. working on the units, allow for more calorie burning.

*since the treadmill was free, and someone needed it on freecycle, i decided since i wasn't using it as much as i thought i would, i passed it on and hope that christine can use it where i didn't.

*i am running out of things to write here.

Tons of fun...

is comming... i just know it is... has to be... been a crazy day today at work.... we had tons of behavior issues, so i just know it has to be getting better soon...

on a better note, the girls are being very helpful today. kenzie even has her bag packed for "a sleepover with shelby, riley, maggie and sam" ! lol. as long as things go well, we will be heading out on friday to go to orlando and spend the weekend with derrick and amanda. it's been a while since we've been to their house, and we need a little break, so we are orlando bound.

kenzie is a whiz kid with dot to dot's. carol got her and shelby books of dot to dots and kenzie sat down and within 1/2 hour, she had it done. the whole book that is! she loves them!

maddie is running around the house chanting, "i do dewwick and manna's" so she is getting hyped up too! it is so cute!

and that is about it for now... more to come.

interesting week

this week has flown by. first we started with having tons of fun last weekend, but I blogged about that... then monday came and went. we worked... tuesday, more work and homework with kenzie... not to mention we learned of the book fair at school. wednesday i was a complete idiot! I knew that Ryan has been subbing in a bowling league with his friend kevin, so not thinking about that only thinking that he was off, I agreed to stay at work for an additional 5 hours. Nothing to bad ya think? WRONG!

1. it's bowling night.
2. i have the van at work
3. the car seats are in it.
4. ryan is at home with the kiddos.
5. not thinking again, i take the van home on my lunch break.
6. i return to work and then realize, 'HOW AM I GETTING HOME?'
7. i somehow talk angeleena into taking her luch break when i got off of work so i wouldn't have to walk 3 miles home after working 13 hours!

and now today i am here and trying to recover...

prayin' for ya

aunt sharon babbs. you are in our thoughts. we sure do hope the mri shows that the dr's are wrong and that you will come out knowing that there isn't a brain tumor present.

today has brung lost of news...

the bit above is just one of the many things.

i did learn that i will be seeing aunt sharon's twin aunt ann for maddie's birthday! yay! growing up i didn't really get to see her much, but now that i am an adult, i love my visits with aunt ann. mom will be here with her.

apparently, mom will be single come 60 days from now. don't know all the details, but she has filed for divorce. that is all i can say at this time.

ryan and i discussed the quickie budget finally. our work schedule is really tough for talking, so we did discuss that tonight and we are both in agreement for the budget, now comes the hard part. putting it into action and sticking to it.

maddie got scared like i have never seen her today at work when one of our residents rolled up in his wheelchair wanting to say hello to her. it just kind of freaked her out and she had a rough night after that.

kenzie has the book fair this week at school and has decided to use $9.00 of her tooth fairy money to buy herself some new books. I thought this was really responsible of her.

and that is about all i can think of for now. i need some sleep for work.

oh yeah, i jumped on the twilight band wagon and am happy to say i am liking what i have read so far!

fun in the sun

We went to the beach yesterday. Green Key isn't the prettiest beach, but it's the closest to the house and has a playground to boot. Riley and Shelby went with me, Kenzie, Maddie, and Carol. Riley and I spent part of our time looking for shells and found slugs instead... see how interesting the shells are?
after a short hike, through the bird trail, this is what we saw...

Having fun on the tire swing...
Riley loved the zip line that was at the playground. She had a small blister on her hand after playing on it so much!

Wow that's a fast slide. I was trying to get a pic of Shelby as she came down, but the camera delayed and this was what I ended up with.

Building a sand castle.


I'm looking Mom, what am I looking for?
These two had a blast pretending to be twins.


Being goofy is her favorite thing to do.





We had so much fun. The water isn't very deep where the deepest is, so we didn't have a lot to worry about with that, and we all had our buckets and had a water fight with them. It was all in all a great time! We love the time we have with Riley and Shelby every time they come to town. We hope soon to be able to go to their house too!

a day in pics

Our tree out front has it's first bloom of the year and I wanted to share it with all of you! Spring is here!
Mom, look what the easter bunny brought me while i was at school today. (we did easter today since I had to work on easter sunday)
Cool hat isn't it? It was attached to the baskets and we thought they were just adorable.
Goofy girl is all I can think to write about this child.
I can throw the frisbee too mommma.
Deep in thought about what to do next I guess....
Mommy, take one of me too please!I don't often take pics of me with the kids, so thought I would do this for you... see all those missing teeth?Maddie took time out for one too...
The bunny ya ya and pappy got me...
and we got sunglasses too...Good thing because mine broke this week... says kenzie

as you can see we had an action packed day and all of this was after we helped carol with mulch, bought me a rock band t shirt to wear to work tomorrow... shopped for some party supplies...etc...

good stuff

kenzie got her report card and has improved in a few areas. also, she read green eggs and ham to me with little help... such a good girl... more to come as maddie is whiney

getting things done

Hiya all my fans... LOL... I been getting things done. I have painted all but 2 walls and i still need to trim in around the celings and baseboards in the kitchen, hallway, livingroom, and the girls bathroom. I am in the garage today working on it. Getting laundry done at the same time. And all while potty training Maddie. All of a sudden she is interested in what the potty is and what you do on it, so pretty soon, I look for her to be going on there all the time. The other day she said she was poopin, and I told her to go on the potty, and she did, hopefully the rest of the training will go so well. Kenzie has been busy with spring break as well.

I have joined face book. It is kind of cool, but I think I still like myspace a little better. I will keep both. Myspace I can edit to be what I want it to be and it has better games. Face book has more of my high school friends and the family along with better quizzes. So, as you can see I am having a tossup.

We are celebrating Easter next weekend because Roy and Carol are at Derrick and Amanda's house this weekend celebrating Easter, Riley's birthday, and Derrick and Amanda's Anniversary (which is tomorrow). So, since all of that is going on and we had to work this weekend, we opted for next weekend.

Kenzie doesn't know it, but we will be coloring eggs for the easter egg hunt at ya ya's and pappy's next weekend.

And, I guess that I am done with the mess of stuff going on in my mind for now. LOL

Kenzie at the beach with her friends

In the water at Green Key Beach. Her friends invited her to go with them since today was the last day of spring break. Since it was last minute, she had to wear one of the bathing suits that was getting too small for her. Hers is in the wash, so it was either that or she didn't get to go, so we opted for the smaller suit.
Mandy, Kenzie and Sarah enjoying the water. Looks like they had a blast!

Whoot!!!

So, this morning, as I was listening to Dave Ramsey, Maddie comes in the room and declares:

"I'm Poopin'"

I reply with, "Please sit on the potty to Poop."

And a few minutes later, Ryan says, "Honey, she pooped somewhere!" we go into the bathroom and discover that she had attempted to wipe herself and didn't make a big mess. We look further into the situation and find that Maddie had pooped on the potty. Amazing isn't it? Of course we had the potty dance and made a big deal about her doing it. I am just so happy for her!

been a busy week!

So, for the last week, here we go....

thursday-- worked my normal shift.
friday-- same as above
saturday worked 3 to 8 pm
sunday worked 7am to 11pm
monday worked my normal shift
tuesday worked 7am to 8 pm.

i went to work wednesday and was gifted with an extra day off for working so many extra hours for renee. i had worked 26 extra hours in the last week to help her out. so now i am in operation recovery mode lol!

kenzie is on spring break this week, so it has been a little crazy around here.

maddie is getting a little cough. poor babe. and that is about the update for us right now.

catching up

i have been working a lot lately like normal, so i get behind with blogging, but here is what is going on ...

it's spring break. ryan is being trained as a preceptor tomorrow... carol is going to watch the kids for us. i am working my normal shift tomorrow and wednesday, and then renee is giving me thursday off for helping her out so much in the last month. i have worked both of my weekends off in the last four weeks and so she is trying to give me some catch up time. we got maddie's birthday present. i have to clean it up a bit and then i will take a pic and post for you all. she will get it the day of her party. it is hidden in the shed. a good place for it! it rained today and is getting cooler here. today was a perfect day for the gloomy weather. and that is all i can think of that has happened... wait:

i don't remember if i put it here but kenzie lost another tooth!

a sad palm sunday

i worked 21 hours this weekend. it was my weekend off, but i love renee, so i worked it to help her out. mom left me a message on my phone giving me the message that pappy benningfield had passed away. please keep our family in your prayers.

loose teeth again

kenzie looses her teeth two at a time as you have seen by my previous post. she has her two eye teeth on the bottom loose! i am hoping that this doesn't mean she will be the mother of twins in the future LOL. Just kidding. I just thought I would share that bit of info with you guys.

the deal finder!

We decided we wanted to get Maddie an outdoor toy since Kenzie is getting an outdoor toy as well, so I have been scouting out the deals and found a barely used swing along castle climber with slide for $55.00! The cost will be split between three of us so that is under $20 each! Awesome! This leaves me with a little more lea way when it comes to figuring out the sponge bob costume. I am still scouting deals for that one, but may resort to making it myself if you know what I mean!

Kenzie came home from school, had a little accident on her scooter on the way home no thanks to a little pug dog that had gotten out of it's house. I not very wisely picked the darn pup up and proceeded to find it's tag only to find that the phone number listed is out of service and a man in the neighborhood came running to our rescue when the kids wouldn't stop freaking out. I don't know if he found the rightful owner or not, but the kids are home and the scrape on Kenzie's knee isn't too awful. She was turning the corner on her scooter, tried stopping because the dog was running toward her and just lost control and over she went. She has done her homework and will be heading to bed real soon.

Maddie has decided her name isn't Maddie. "I Dewwick and Mana" she says! Gotta tell ya, It's a hard knock life kiddo!

And that is that for now!

20 down....

a bunch to go! I got on the scale today at work and have lost 20 pounds since december! It feels great! I just have a bunch to go!

stickin to the status quo

not much happening other than... amanda talked me into facebook and i must admit i am liking it... another post when i have something to report