Fun At Daddy's Office

Leo's office building is very nice and has a nice little pond and stream that is home to many big fish and ducks. So yesterday the kids and I went to visit him at his office so they could feed the ducks and see the fish. I knew they would like this. We brought a bag with 3 hot dog buns to feed to the ducks. This was a mistake between the fish and the ducks we needed a whole LOAF of bread. When we get out of the car there are two ducks walking along the path. They see Sweet Girl and see she is holding a bag and proceed to follow her and nip at the bag. It was kind of funny. Sweet Girl was so excited to be THAT close to ducks.
We go over to the bridge and feed the ducks and fish and they are sure hungry and are "asking" for food in their little duck language. It was fun and the kids loved it.

Sweet Girl wants to go in and see Daddy's office. We're walking to the door to get in when I look away for a minute and the next minute I see Little Man has squeezed his head THROUGH the railing surrounding the water. And he's grunting because he is now STUCK. I am like OH. MY. GOD. I try to get him out but it's not working. He's squirming a little more now. I finally had to push his head from the other side and it wasn't an easy task. His head is not all that small. It was stuck and took some effort to get him free. But he was finally freed without having to call anyone or run to the grocery store for oil or butter to lube up his head. I did freak out for a second as I saw us having to pry the bars apart to get him out.

The kids enjoyed seeing Daddy's office. I imagine it will be requested to go see the ducks and fish again. I'll take pictures next time so you can also experience the feeding frenzy!

Ahhhh...The Weather

The weather this past week has been fantastic. It has been in the low 80's with humidity in the single digits. It makes it quite pleasant to sit outside and enjoy it. We've been sitting outside and playing in the great weather every day and evening. The kids are LOVING playing and running around the backyard. And Leo and I are enjoying hanging out on the back patio watching them. They play on their little kangeroo climber on the grass, Sweet Girl rides her bike on the patio, Little Man draws with chalk all over the patio, climber, benches, and basically anything that will take it.
Now that we spend so much time outside it's time to invest in some comfy patio furniture. Our $5 camp chairs from Wal-mart are starting to rip. And there is only two of them so when my parents were here it was almost like who could get outside first to get the comfy chair. The only problem with patio furniture is, I think, it is ungodly expensive. We looked at some and the whole set which included a couch, two chairs and a table was $2500. I was like HOLY CRAP. I mean I don't mind spending money but I just think that is TOO MUCH for patio furniture. So now the search will begin for reasonable, comfortable and nice looking patio furniture.
If you have any suggestions of places to look I would love to hear it!

Sweet Girl Is Pretty Darn Smart

Since I posted about Little Man it's only fair that I post about what a smart (and sometimes smarty pants) and bright kid Sweet Girl is. She is definitely a sponge when it comes to information and has quite good hearing. I think we will start having her do "ear muffs" when we have conversations so she doesn't go to school or something and blurt out what she's heard. Now I'm not writing this post to brag about her or anything, just as means to update you on what's going on at our house. That was the purpose of the blog remember?

Some of her current skills include:

She can write the letters A, U, M, H, R, O and I

She knows about half of the states and where they are located (without looking at the map).

She knows how to spell Mississippi.

She knows all these weird exotic animals just by looking at them. (I'm giving props to Diego for this one...who said kids watching cartoons is THAT bad).

I figure soon enough she'll know all the states and we'll have to start working on the capitols. I am constantly amazed at what she learns and knows. I hope we can continue on this path of learning and that Little Man has the same desire to learn. I hope I can continue whatever it is I might be doing to encourage her to continue with this thirst for knowledge.

Little Man The Unusual

Little Man is such a character. He never ceases to amaze me with the things that kid does. Already his heart is so big. He loves to share things with you, especially food. He often gets Sweet Girl her duckie if she's asking for it. He's just a sweetheart. But he does seem to be doing some werido things right now as well. Maybe it's because he's a boy, I don't know.

For example. yesterday he was laying on the patio sucking the water from between the cracks. WHY on earth would he do this? And WHERE did he learn it from? These things I don't know. And now you're probably saying to yourself "no wonder their kids are getting sick all the time, they're letting them slurp water from the sidewalk". Ah No. It's not something that I told him to go do or encouraged by any means.

He enjoys wearing Sweet Girls shoes. He especially likes to wear one of the fleece crocs with one of the regular ones. AND they are often on the wrong feet.

He won't eat at the dinner table anymore UNLESS he is sitting on MY lap. I am now a chair. Not that I mind but it often makes it difficult for me to eat as well. And I am kind of afraid I'm going to get a fork in the eye if I'm not paying attention.

If you read the post where I said he likes to dip food, well now sometimes he won't eat the food anymore, it's just the dip. Using a fork to eat ranch dressing is not really easy and creates quite a mess.

He's starting to collect things for his bed. The other night he must have had 10 books, an elmo doll, two blankets and a pillow that HAD to be in his bed before he would go to sleep. And when he gets up they all must also come with him.

But even with his strange quirks he is still such a doll and still melts my heart. And hey at least the quirks are entertaining, at least until I'm stabbed in the eye with that fork.

Poor Planning On My Part...

Tomorrow my parents head back home to TN. This will be very sad and difficult for me. They have been here for over a month and to be honest with you I have enjoyed having them around. Not just because of the extra hands they provide in taking care of my house and kids but because I love them. And I like having them around. Sure they get on my nerves every once in a while but everyone seems to do that so that's note really worth noting.
What is going to make the them leaving even worse is they are leaving during PMS week. This is not a good thing, because during PMS week everything is multiplied by like 100 for me. So while yes them leaving at any time would have been hard, it's going to be especially difficult for me now.

I am going to consult my pill pack for any other decisions like this from this point forward. I've done this a few times. I did the cleanse and ended it right during PMS week AND my birthday. Not a good idea to have to "ease" back into eating when you have raging hormones that want all things fried, sweet and topped off with Coke. I should have advised them to leave next week when my crazy hormones don't have the best of me and I'm not a emotional bitch.

I'm already suffering a little today, sad when I think about them leaving and then I get irritated that we moved again.
I'm trying to go to Happy Valley, but it's not really working...

Come Back! Please Come Back!

Ok, I know I've been a little negative and now fear that I have driven away readers becasue if you're like me (the me now) you really don't enjoy being around a negative person. One of the things I've enjoyed about writing the blog is the comments. It makes me feel good knowing people are reading and responding and I still feel connected to you. However based on the comment record in the last few posts I fear no one is reading because I am being Debbie Downer.

Now if you've known me for a great number of years you know I used to be the Queen of Negative Manor. I complained ALOT and about everything. I always focused on the negative. But as I got older I moved out of the Negative Manor and into Happy Valley. And I wanted to surround myself with people in the Happy Valley. Now don't be fooled the Happy Valley does have it's bad side of town because everyone has their days where they want to complain and vent and just plain think negatively. And of course I've crossed to that side of the tracks and visited a while but always found my way back to the happier side of Happy Valley. But lately I guess I set up camp over on the not so happy side. I stayed too long. But it's so easy to just think negatively. The negative thoughts are right there easily accessible, piled high on a silver platter just waiting for you to pick one up. Finding the happy thought sometimes takes effort. And sometimes (like lately for me) that's difficult when you're tired and overwhelmed and exhausted from dealing with the kids sicknesses and moving and all the other adjustments you have to make. So I have packed up my tent and I'm slowly trying to get back to the happier side. And I hope, dear readers...if there are any left, you come back and read and post comments. I'll try to keep it light and happy.

And as much as I want to post that now Little Man has pneumonia and an ear infection and we were swarmed by bees yesterday I won't. Instead as a peace offering I shall share with you a highly embarassing story. Yes this would only happen to me. Read this as I were telling you in person. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

The bathroom at the office here in Tempe has seat covers and I use them. Well this particular one caused me a problem because instead of the pee going down the little opening it somehow got tilted towards the outside of the toilet and was going down the front of the toilet and my pants. I wasn't sitting like right up against the seat or anything but the angle of the cover helped move it right along and onto the back of my pants. Yes I peed on my pants sitting on the toilet. How the hell does that happen?

My Outlook

I am still not feeling great. It basically feels like I have a sumo wrestler sitting on my chest and I sound like a 90 year old smoker with a nice wheezing cough that hurts my chest and back. I am sure it is quite attractive in both sight and sound as I cross my legs to keep from peeing on myself with my horrible cough.

I am sure the last few posts have seemed somewhat negative in how I've been handling the move and adjustment to Arizona. And that is probably true, I am not doing that great a job with the adjustment and the fact that Sweet Girl and Little Man had trouble with getting dropped off at school, then we had all the sickness and I got sick I was becoming a little resentful and hated the fact we left where I was comfortable, the kids were comfortable and I had everything I needed. But alas after a lot of thought and the fact that I obviously can't go back to TN I will have to just make the best of it here. It's not like I do not LIKE it here, I do. It's like this: You know when you go on vacation and you like where you are and it's pretty and peaceful and you're enjoying yourself but deep down you can't wait to get back to your house and comfort zone? That's what I feel like. I just want to go back to our other house and the kids other school and my comfort zone of friends and family. But I can't go back there.

My realization that I needed to change my attitude (even though a few friends and my mom have said I just need to think of it as an adventure. It is easier said then done in my opinion and if you know me I can't just say OK I'll think like that, I wish I could!) came when I remembered how everything does happen for a reason. I looked back on all the things I was uncomfortable with at that time and struggled with and then saw the usually fruitful opportunity it turned into. So while I do not know what this will result in, I know we are here for a reason and it will be another opportunity for us to grow, learn, adapt and hopefully come out ahead again.
Do I want to stay in AZ forever, actually probably not. After all my years of disliking a small city, I have grown to realize I do like it better. Phoenix is HUGE and sprawling and HUGE. It is actually very overwhelming.

But for now this is where we are supposed to be.

So I will encourage visitors as we would love to show you around our new home and area. And for what it's worth, we have not had any more scorpions in the house or around the house. We have been scorpion free since the last post about them. So come on over!