I was REALLY hoping that my son would sleep in a little this morning....WHAT was I thinking????

Right at 6:00am he woke up ready to go. Brought him back to my bed with a sippy cup of juice and turned on the cartoon only to see the devil "Barney". At least I was able to get about 30 more minutes of snoozing.

Going to the pool this morning and then I'm dropping the kid off at grandma's house so I can come home and guess what....do blasted yard work. BLAH!!!!! I have to say I'm getting tan and fit from all of this yardwork...but man...what a pain in my azzz. It's almost too much to be enjoyed, you know?

I think I'm going to grill us some supper and hopefully I'll have some Netflix movies in the mail today. Sound exciting, huh? <yawn>

Hope everyone has a good day!!!!!

Have a great day everyone - allousa I can relate to ur early riser, my liittle guy is up never fail always by 6 am sometimes 5!

Hi everybody! Today I am going to Wisconsin! My sister has a house in the country and is having a pool party for about 50 people and I am taking Alexis. This will be the first time in 4 years that she will be away from her parents overnight (maybe now I will get that 2nd grandchild ) Ms Lexy thinks we are sleeping in a tent tonight, uhhhh I think the bed in the guest room has my name on it. After she goes to sleep, I will be in the hot tub under the stars. Then tommorrow on the way home, we plan on stopping at Gurnee Mills (HUGE mall) where I can continue to spoil Lexylou.

Hope you all have a great weekend. Have fun with that yardwork allousa and HI Melinda!

Jackie
to my friends that have my number ...call me ,,I have free nights and weekends now!

Sounds like u will have a wonderful weekend jackie! Not much here in Michigan, i think its going to be off and on rain today. Hope everybody has a wonderful weekend!

Wow. Allousa, yard work will keep you trim. I am happy that you are working yourself towards your goal! The only good thing about the babies waking up so early, is that they either sleep early or take a nice nap in the afternoon. (which you may not get to enjoy cause he's with grandma ) So, next time just look at it as a "Go to bed early Card "!

Jackie, I know you are psyched about this weekend and I hope you enjoy it soo much! The hot tub sounds terrific!

Today is a lazy day for us. We slept all day, but we woke up to some piping hot homemade pizza! Thanks Ma! It was delicious.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

hope everyone is having a great weekend so far! its been a pretty laid back day today.

since ive been lazy about the whole photobucket and pics thingy, just thought id let people know that wanna see i got pics on my myspace page..the link is in my siggy. i added a few more pics yesterday of a bbq we just had at his sister's house!........

alright take care

Hi Jackie - Good for you, have a great time at your sisters!! And enjoy spoiling Alexis!!

I like the pics, Jess! The dog is so cute. Your house looks nice and cool inside. I didn't see any steam coming off of you guys!

lol yes i like to keep it niceeee and cool!! walking outside feels like an oven most days!

Well it's about 101 here and humid today...reminds me of when I was in Alex!!!!

I just finished a well deserved latte after shopping from 11am to 3:30pm for back-to-school clothes for the kids.

OMG I am TOTALLY writing a complaint letter to Abercrombie!!!! We walk in and who greets us but this 20ish yr old guy with no shirt on and jeans that START about 1/4 of the way down his well rounded butt! I think I turned about 5 shades of red when he said hi to me!!! I really don't think that's necessary marketing though. I hate the bags too and get embarassed when the girls carry their stuff in them. BLECH. Anyway we're about 2/3 of the way done now. Just have to get shoes, jammies and a winter coat for each.

We had to take a break half way through and get lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. LOVE that place but I think that's the last time the kids will be willing to go in with me. lol. They grow up waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast!!!!!

There's an italian festival in the next town but it's way to hot n humid for me. Gonna stay in and watch movies I guess. Feels nice knowing I don't have to go to work for another 10 days or so!!!



Jackie I hope you have a lot of good fun with lexi!!! I think she'll boost your spirits! Little kids are the best medicine for the blues!

Hey ladies! Let's go have dinner at Allousa's (we can bring side dishes for whatever she is grilling ) and then go hop in the pool hot tub with jackie, since she'll be all alone without Lexi

Doodle: totally agree with you about Abercrombie. I wont even shop there. Why do they need half naked associates to sell their stuff??


Jess: How are things in Saudi?

hi there things are pretty good here im enjoying the different way of life. tho there are sure lots of things i miss.



in other news, my ex took Dae school shopping because he has outgrown all his clothes and when they tried jeans on....he has to have a 12 for length!! yikessss the boy will be 7 in Nov. he is really excited about starting school and showed me piece by piece what he got feels great to be included even when im far away. im thankful to his dad actually for keeping it that way. my big boy is going into 1st grade *cries*

hope everyone has a good weekend.

Maggie it is absolutely ridiculous. I told them they can spend a total of $50 each there (as long as it's not those hoochie mama shorts) and the rest of the clothes had to be bought at Macys, American Eagle, etc. Thankfully my youngest didn't want to but the oldest HAD to. Of course that money only was able to purchase one shirt, but it did the trick thankfully.

It's one of those things that the kids in her particular class feel that they have to have in order to "belong". I remember what it was like to be that age and I also remember my mom making me wear frilly dresses everyday while the "cool girls' got to wear white carpenter pants and clogs. So I decided last year that I'll let them get one or two of the cool expensive things but the rest have to be normal stuff that doesn't require a second mortgage on my house!

I sooooo hope that if I do have a third child it's a boy who could care less about this stuff!!!

Ah Doodle, don't count on it. LOL Tho I am happy as a lark buying from the clearance rack, and shopping at the dollar stores, two of my sons inherited the "rich" taste from their father. At ten and twelve they ask for cell phones, play stations, PSP players (whatever they are), Nikes, and want "label" clothes. I tell them to ask their dad for these things and they roll their eyes at me. LOL Right, you don't get them from me and you don't get them from your dad, so I guess you need to get a job! LOL The other ten year old could care less, half the time I am lucky if I can get him to wear clothes that actually matck. But they do match mom, see they both have blue in them, No honey, checks and stripes don't go together, EVER LOL

its been one hell of a Saturday

So it's the boys too???

Wow my oldest is 11 1/2 so maybe it's that age...but seriously she's been like this for a good year though. There's this certain "clique" she's in and they all have to have their Abercrombie t-shirts/sweats and the Ugg boots and the Hollister book bags. My youngest is a lil skater girl wanna be and always has to stand OUT from the crowd. Then again whenever her particular friends get a new nintendo ds game she has to get it too so I guess it's just vented in a different direction...electronically instead of with clothes.

I know it won't go away till their in their twenties so I have a LOOONG way to go. And they sooo know how to get their dad to take them shopping too. He's a sucker for those big brown eyes and the long lashes and the puppy dog face. lol. What's worked for me though is layin' it all on the line and giving them an actual budget with which to go by. They now know how much things cost and that when you buy a big ticket item it means you don't get as many of them, etc. The next step is to make them realize what it takes to actually earn the money. I do have them do chores and give them a small allowance but I really don't think it'll sink in until they get a real job.

LOL!! I have a 12 year old that feels the same way about "Abercrombie." Although, when it's HER money that she's spending, it's amazing how quickly she finds the "sale" and "clearance" racks. When it's MY money...lol...the same racks miraculously disappear. ....I'm just happy that she is the last one of three girls...(21, 19, 12)...when she's all grown, I might actually have some money in my pocket...lol...I feel your pain, Doodle...but trust me, they all go back to shopping at Wal-Mart when they start needing gas in their cars...

Here is what my youngest said to me one day when I offered him money if he would clean his room.

Nick: Mom, why can't we live in a Mansion?
Me: I don't have a job to make enough money so that we can live in a mansion, what is wrong with the home we live in now?
Nick: My room is dirty.
Me: So clean it like I clean the rest of the house.
Nick: But can you get another job so we can live in a Mansion?
Me: UH, NO?
Nick: Why can't you?
Me: Why can't you clean your room?
Nick: I don't want to.
Me: The same reason I don't want to work two jobs, I don't want to.
Nick: So, you won't get another job so we can live in a Mansion?
Me: NO, and even if I did have another job, we still couldn't live in a mansion. And why do you want to live in a mansion anyway?
Nick: Because if we lived in a Mansion, it would mean you were rich. If we were rich, you could hire a maid, and then I wouldn't HAVE TO CLEAN MY ROOM!!!

Needless to say, the maid didn't clean his room, but I did. LOL

Well I got to the point where I refused to clean their rooms anymore. I think it was last year sometime. I didn't just go cold turkey, I would make a list with boxes for them to check off so that they'd feel like they accomplished something, you know? Simple step by step instructions like, empty trash, put dirty laundry down cellar, put books in book bucket, put toys in toy bucket, etc. etc.

That only works after a good two hours of nagging from me though...unless it is a Saturday when we're going shopping, like today, and then I say that we won't go until it's done.

Today though, we watched Clean Sweep which they had never seen before in the morning. Wouldn't ya know when we got home from shopping the oldest got together with the youngest and they totally bagged up about 6 huge garbage bags worth of stuff they were willing to toss and cleaned their rooms!!!

What happened?? yesterday you were dancing because it was pay day..

I think I heard MY son saying those very words when I read that!! That would make a great sunday comic strip.

I am so glad that I have two boys. Although they are little now so who knows how they will be when they know about things - my almost 5 year old has already had me get him crocs. The nice thing is that he is going to private school Gd willing, and he is only allowed to wear certain styles in certain colors. Its not a specific uniform - but a very strict dress code of about three color shirts and styles and two kinds of pants - no cargo or jeans! so hopefully this will at least keep the trendy clothes requests down to just weekends. although they are allowed to wear sneakers

Does it ever really sink in until you have to start paying a mortgage....or rent?????

somewhat relevant article

http://www.slate.com/id/2172705/nav/tap1/
http://www.slate.com/id/2172705/nav/tap1/

YooooHoooooo It's Sunday