Sanity is essential.

Everyone has their own way of escaping from reality for a few minutes and just breathe. As a mother if you don't do this you will lose your sanity and your ability to be rational. Yes, this is true, it has been scientifically proven that you must take a break to just be alone to breathe or you will lose all common sense before your job is completed as parents.

I have a couple of ways I do this. First, one of my favorite ways to lock out the world for a few minutes is to lock the bathroom door, open the door to my room, turn on some blues music loud, turn off all the lights and lay in the bathtub soaking in Epsom salts with the candles lit to fill the air. But, not before letting the tweenies know, that it would be in their best interest not to disrupt me while I take a bath. Yes, i am guilty of trying to escape from my family at times. I admit, I have a tendency to take too many baths.

One of my other favorite things to do other than sit on the ocean and watch the sun come down is sitting outside own my swing, just relaxing in front of the fire drinking a cup of hot tea. It is so relaxing and I don't have to be alone for this one. I even enjoy my quiet time I spend in front of the fire with my children.

One thing I love to watch in the dark is a fire. No, not a burning house, I am not that demented. I like tiki torches, fire pits and soft lighting. Here are some pics of my sanctuary.

My patio, with my antique umbrella that actually shields the sun
and rain.  This was made in the U.S.A.!!!  This has been used as my work space a lot through
 out the week. I surrender the house and seek shelter outside.

The perfect fire to stare into as my thoughts drift off and I am able to sanely
return to my family. 

My favorite swing. I have done a lot of thinking on this swing.

Don't be ashamed if you have a secret hide out to regain your sanity in. It is essential to your mental health and your child's opportunity to grow up to be a healthy productive member of society. 

Road Trips

I always thought as the kids got older, it would be easier to take road trips with them, but that hasn't rang true yet. Instead of packing bags of toys for the trip, we are now packing several pairs of shoes, jewelry, X-box and the Wii. It hasn't got any easier than when the were little. At least when they were little, I could gather their stuff together. Now, it requires their assistance and there are so many things they claim they can't live without.

Except now we have even more complications, nobody wants to sit next to the other one. They are driving me nuts with this sibling rivalry crap. I have no clue how to stop it, everything I try doesn't work. They are 11 and 12 years old and claim they hate one another. My oldest and middle child are 8 years apart, so I didn't have to deal with the sibling rivalry as much as I do with my two youngest, who are only 1 year apart. They live to drive the other one nuts. The only problem with that is, the parents are the ones who are stuck trying to mediate between the two all the time and according to them, we are never fair. No matter how hard we try to be fair, someone is always unhappy with the decision. The sad part about it is, I have two psychology degrees and can't get my two children to get a long, no matter how many different things I try there is always that underlying resentment towards one another and I don't know how or when it began. We adore them both and hate seeing them at one another all the time. It makes it very difficult to do anything together as a family, because they are always arguing with one another. 

So Proud Of My Baby Girl

I am so proud of my baby girl, she received the Golden Academic Award last night for straight A's. I have to especially be proud of her, she started school when she was only 4 years old, so she is a year ahead of most her classmates and still tests at a higher grade level than she's in. She will only be 11 years old going into the 7th grade. 

I am so proud of my little girl, she has always been an easy child since the day she was born, I am so lucky to have her. She always get good grades and never gets in trouble in school. 

From the Mouths of Babes

Yesterday was the strangest afternoon, which just kept going until the evening. It was full of arguing, laughing and crying. It started in the afternoon when my two youngest got into a really big argument screaming at each other. To be honest with you, I never did figure out what is was about. Then we my oldest told my youngest who is 11, she had PMS, Sammy said "No, I don't", Amanda asked her "Do you even know what that means?". Sammy said yes, I don't have PMS, because that is when you always mad at men and I am not always mad at men, just Adam.

Sammy said she was in a bad mood, because some girl at school is mean to her, because she doesn't like Sammy's friend. I told her, she was just jealous of how pretty and smart she was that's why she was teasing her. She wishes she was more like her and Amanda told her the same and Sammy started raising her voice at Amanda and she put her hand in front of Sammy's mouth and told her be quiet for a moment so she could talk to her. Sammy told her to move her hand or she was going to bite it. I don't encourage that kind of behavior, but with it being a strange afternoon, I started laughing hard and I tried to cover my face and hide the laughter, but I couldn't hold in the laughter anymore. I broke out in laughter so hard I was crying and laughing at the same time. We were both heart broken and were crying, because Sammy was crying over this girl giving her a hard time, we just burst into laughter when she said she was going to bite her hand.

When my husband came home, he looked like he just walked into the twilight zone and was confused. Here all three of us were sitting in the living room teary eyed and then burst into laughter. Well, it made Sammy feel better to have a good hard laugh.

A Day of Relaxation Needed 3:00 cont...

1:27 pm..... took a nap.

3:00 pm- time for the munchkins, Mommy time is over.  So enjoy your....

A Day Of Relaxation Cont... 11:50 am

10:00 am... made the bed. It's funny how meticulous your can be when that is the only house cleaning that needs done. 

10:15 am.... Soak in a hot bath of Epsom Salts. As I was soaking in the water, I could feel the hot water surrounding my aches and pains, then washing away my fatigue. 

Pampered myself, spending extra time making myself feel pretty. 

Let my hair down....

Made a cup of hot tea....

Put my favorite pair of silver slippers on, sat in my favorite spot.....

and turned on a Lifetime movie while updating my blog. 

A Day Of Relaxation Needed

This picture was perfect, I always feel like I am stuck
in the middle of my  two youngest fighting and don't know what to do to
keep the peace in the house at least for the rest of the day.

I worked hard all week getting everything I need to do done so I can spend Friday relaxing. Even though I am a SAHM, I do have other things to manage with my online web store I have to keep up the running, the errands,  running the kids to and from school, laundry, cleaning, cooking and everything in between, I am completely exhausted and my back is hurting.

Before when I was working, my time was managed differently. I had to fit in working a eight or nine our day in there also. But, the cleaning was done while the kids were getting ready for school, errands ran on my way home from work, laundry done when ever throwing a load in and getting one out would fit in and cooking a quick meal when returning home from work.

Now, I do a whole lot more cleaning than I did before. The children seem to think, just because I don't work outside of the home, I should clean up after them more. The standards of what is clean and what is not clean has changed, I sit down in my living room more now than before and have more time to notice my surroundings more. On days I had appointments or had to take the dog to the vet., it was usually take out for dinner but, now I usually cook on those days unless it's a late appointment.

I spent four hours cleaning the house yesterday, getting the errands ran and doing the laundry just so I can sit, relax and maybe spending sometime writing. For some unknown reason other than a lack of time, I haven't had the time to sit down and write. I don't know if it is my need to have things neat and tidy all the time has gotten worse or that I just have more tasks to accomplish through out the day.

Today, I will get dressed when I am ready to get dressed, I will sit and drink my coffee watching the news and surfing the net as long as I want to and today I am not going to do anything unless it necessity, like picking up my daughter from the bus stop and of course cook dinner unless I get too relaxed and decide to go with take out for dinner tonight. I thought I would give myself my own Mother's Day gift. Happy Mother's Day! 


To be cont....

Mommy Overload

Sometimes I think being a stay at home Mom is more stressful than working. The morning starts with trying to get the kids out of bed on time and mediating between the two kids who are at each other's throats every waking moment they cross paths through out the day. My children and dog are driving me up the wall. It has become so difficult to get everyone ready for school and out the door on time to get them to school and the dog has been having more anxiety issues than normal lately. This morning my son refused to get out of bed because I turned the light on. I turned the light on because he wasn't getting up and I told him, if he doesn't get up I am going to turn the light on. The funny thing is they have no clue why we get upset with them when we are repeatedly telling them to get out of bed, then we are rushing them to get ready and then driving fast to get them to school on time so I don't have to go in and sign him in for being late to school. I am half tempted to get a glass of water and dump it on him, because I'm tired of repeatedly telling him from 6:30 to 7:00 everyday to get out of the bed. He is 12 years old and goes to bed at 9:30, there is no reason why he can not get up in the morning. Even when I put him in bed 8:30 for misbehaving, he still doesn't get up on time.

I have no clue what a pampered dog can have anxiety issues over. He is stressing me out with his anxiety issues. He pulls his hair out and chews himself whenever I leave him. This morning when taking my son to school he pulled his hair out, because I wouldn't take him with me when I left. All week my son has been running late and I didn't have the time to take the dog with me to drop him off. When I came back from dropping him off at school, the dog had a pile of hair around him where he pulled the hair out of his legs for not taking him. He is on anxiety medication because he does this all the time when I leave him or when the kids leave him. I have to keep him in the same room with me all day to watch him. I would hate to do it, but if he doesn't stop soon I am going to have to get rid of him because he is killing us financially running him to the vet every couple of months. This month I couldn't go the doctor myself  to get my medication refilled because I had to take him to the vet for ear infections. He also digs his ears when he gets mad. Then he leaves scratches and they get infected and I end up taking him to the vet every 2 or 3 months for ear infections and his anxiety problems.

Today is one of those days where I just want to go back to bed and give up on today.

Children

Sometimes it is so difficult to write when you have children. This morning I got on a half hour ago to write and my son made the whole task almost completely impossible for me. He is 12 and still can not seem to get ready for school without me staying on him or complaining the entire way. He was supposed to wake up an hour ago. Almost one hour later, he is still in his pajamas and I have to leave in less than 5 minutes to drive him to school. He has spent the last hour complaining he needs new shoes because the white part that goes around the shoe is stained. Not because there is actually something wrong with the shoes, because the white rubber that goes around the shoe is stained. I can't afford another pair at least until next weekend, but that's not good enough, he needs them now according to him. This little obsession he has over his shoes is beginning to drive me nuts.

Then his next complaint is he needs new chap stick. But, I was prepared for that one. I always keep extra chap stick in the house, because he goes through a chap stick in about two weeks. I don't even know how that is possible.

Kids just don't seem to understand that adults have to pay their bills before filling a need that is not an immediate need. 

Sleep Overs

I enjoy the school year, because it gives me some "me time" to get work done at home during the day without interruptions considering I work at home. However, the kids drive me nuts with sleep overs. With two kids, they don't see anything wrong with someone sleeping over every weekend. But, sometimes I just get tired of someone else's child always being here on the weekends. It just gets out of control sometimes, because they think they should take turns with the sleep overs or even overlap the sleep overs sometimes. What they don't understand is we don't always want kids here every weekend.

The house is always messy when there are sleep overs and it becomes difficult to sit down and watch a movie because of all the noise. Then let's add they plow through the junk food when they have sleep overs. What do kids like to do during sleep overs? They like to run around being loud because they are excited to be having a sleep over and eat. Which means there is going to be an extra trip to the store to replace all the food they went through over the weekend. I think it is completely understandable to not want sleep overs every weekend. Maybe we would like some quiet time or invite adult friends over for some drinks and adult conversation and be able to hear one another speak without having to mediate between the kids or asking them to settle down. But, kids really don't seem to understand that we would like to be able to enjoy our weekend too occasionally, we are just being unfair or some how playing favoritism if they are the ones we are saying no to that weekend. 

Sibling Rivalry

Being a mother can be so challenging at times. My 11 year old daughter and 12 year old son have there own personal war going on, that no one else seems to get. It starts in the morning before school, after school and continues on until someone or both ends up going to bed early. They have a very difficult time being in the same room with one another without picking at one another, instigating arguments, or doing something intentionally to make the other one angry.

It is so obvious their intentions when they do something to one another that they are doing it to make the other one angry. They will sit and listen when one of them speaks, waiting for the opportunity to pounce or they will do something they know will make the other angry and walk away with a smirk on their face.

It is driving me insane, I find myself repeating the same thing overs and over again through out the day, everyday! For example, if one of them wants to get on the computer when one is getting off. They intentionally log off anyway and say they didn't hear them. When we know they did, because they made a smart comment to the other one. Well, not only are they making the other one angry. They are making me angry right along with them, because I am constantly mediating between the two and when they log off I have to go log the other one back on because it is password protected.

We do everything between the two of them exactly even to make sure no one feels like the other gets more attention or more of anything. I always make everything even between all of my children including my adult child who lives on her own. I always do my very best to treat them all the same. I love all of my children the same and I am a strong believer in treating your children equally. I spend the same on them right down to the dollar and spend time with them equally and give them equal attention. A lot of their problems stems from their father, who does not treat them equally and I don't know how to stop what he has created.

I have tried everything with these two to try and stop the bickering from them losing privileges, grounding them, sending them to bed early, talking to them telling them why they shouldn't argue so much to even time out. Nothing is working. Any suggestions?

They Never Listen

I don't know what it is about my children, but they act like everything I tell them is a joke. This morning I told my son to take his lanyard out of his pocket and put it in his back pack, because he was going to lose it with the lanyard hanging out his pocket. He looked at me and gave me an annoyed look when I told him. Then when we get up to the school, he get's out of the truck and reaches for his lanyard. Well, it was gone and was no where to be found. I had to drive back to the house and look for it and back to the school again to look for it in the parking lot before dropping my daughter off at the bus stop. The lanyard with his school ID was gone. I am sure it will show up somewhere, but for now he had to go to school without his ID. Somehow, he will manage to try and tell me, it had nothing to do with it hanging out of his pocket and he doesn't know how he lost it.  

Another Road Trip To North Carolina

I have been MIA in the blogger world lately, because I took a little road trip to North Carolina. My father was sick and I needed to go to help my mother. The stress was becoming too much for her and I was worried about him, plus I needed to see him to make sure he was okay before leaving. It is very difficult to be so far away from your parents when they are sick. You worry about them so much and you are so far away you can't go over and check on them every day.

It never fails on a road trip that you run into at least one stupid driver on on the road. If your lucky you run into only one stupid driver. On the way down there, a crazy motorcycle driver whipped in front of me forcing me to put on my breaks on the highway. Then there were the crazy drivers who think they are race car drivers, riding your bumper if they can't pass you. Coming back during the day wasn't too bad until I hit OH8, where the traffic was bumper to bumper and a driver stopped in front me waiting to get over two lanes, because they almost missed their exit causing a big truck behind me to put on their brakes and came just inches away from hitting me. Then on the Ohio Turnpike their was a semi carrying new cars swerving and flying down the high way. I kept passing him, because I didn't want to be behind him or next to him in case he wrecked and every time  I passed him, he would pass me and get in front of me. I think he did it intentionally, because he was driving behind me and I was going 75, the speed limit was 70 but that wasn't fast enough for him, he passed me and flipped his hands up in the air.

I got stuck in one lane traffic on the turn pike for almost an hour, so a trip that would normally take me 12 hours took 14 hours. I was so stressed out by the time I got home, my neck and shoulders are so stiff it hurts to turn my head. If plane tickets weren't so expensive, I would fly.

Then I came home after a 14 hour trip and being gone for a week and a half to find the house a mess and I don't think anyone cleaned the bathroom while I was gone and I spent an hour and half cleaning, because I can't walk on dirty floors and I didn't want to kids to be using a bathroom with mold growing in the shower and around the sink or a dirty toilet. It wasn't easy to coordinate, my husband's schedule, my oldest daughter's schedule with the babysitter to make sure someone was here with the kids all the time.

Another Year More Mayhem

My birthday is coming up in a few days, one of the most dreaded days of the year. For some reason, I always start feeling depressed around my birthday since I turned 39 and I never want to celebrate. Well, this year, I will be turning 41. I seem to be taking it a little better this year until I found my first grey hair in my eye brow. I am in denial about my age. My uncle asked me a couple of weeks ago how old I was, I told him 39. At that moment, I believed I was 39. Somewhere along the line I had lost a whole year and didn't realize I would be turning 41 until my daughter mentioned, I would be turning 41.

Not to mention, the kids are always on their worst behavior the week on my birthday, even on Mothers Day. I don't know what is up with them regarding that. Take this week for example, nobody wants to get out of bed, they take forever to get in the shower, nobody can seem to find anything this week  and every time I tell them to do something, they say "Why don't you tell Adam (or Sammy) to do it? Just in the time I wrote my first paragraph, I have had to get up six times. It took me an hour to write the first paragraph. My kids are 10 and 11, soon to be 11 and 12 in two months and they can't seem to get themselves ready for school without me trailing behind them to tell them 10 times to get in the shower. It took me 20 minutes to get Sammy out of the bed and in the shower this morning and 45 minutes to get Adam in the shower. He now only has 20 minutes to shower and get ready for school. They both have alarm clocks that shine the time on the ceiling, but they haven't mastered waking up to them yet.  Last week they were fine, but this week everything is falling apart. My son never has any clothes, even after I do laundry because he kicks his clothes under the bed when he is supposed to be cleaning his room.

So, why should I enjoy my birthday? Its the second week of school and somehow it always turns out to be the worst week of the year. Some sort of big expense or major problem seems to come up around this time of year making it hard to enjoy. This year it was the insurance company demanding we replace the shingles on the house and garage. The shingles on the house needed replaced, but it wasn't urgent. There was no leak. The garage shingles weren't too bad. Replacing the shingles has broke the bank. We didn't replace the shingles on the bay window, because they didn't need done and they matched the house. Well, when the insurance came to take pictures of the house, they insisted the shingles be replaced on the bay window or they would cancel our insurance. Then they send a letter saying our insurance has been reinstated without a lapse in insurance and they apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. I felt like taking that letter and shoving it right up their ass. Any inconvenience, we are now late on the mortgage, because we were short on money for the shingles. My uncle did the roofs for us, and it still cost us almost $4000 to do the shingles on the house and garage. Shingles up here in Michigan are $31.99 a bundle. The only thing I do have to be thankful for is my uncle did it for us or the house and garage would have cost us around $10,000. We would have never been able to come up with the money and the bank would have foreclosed on us for no home owners, because I tried to find another company but couldn't find one. Almost no one, but one company would insure us because the property values dropped so low in Michigan. My house is now worth about $30,000 less than I owe on the mortgage.

Not only did we have the expense of the roof, my daughter broke her glasses on Friday. We had to split doing the house and garage shingles up between two paychecks, because we didn't have enough money to do them both at the same time. So, this was the worst week for her to break her glasses. But, we had to take her Saturday to get new ones, so she could see in school.

Then there is my ex-husband who has not given me any child support in almost three months. I swear, he always pulls this around my birthday, it NEVER fails. Wayne County, Michigan child support judges are the worst judges. A few years ago, he took me to court to have his child support payments reduced after being $3,000 behind. Not only did the judge reduce his payments, he dropped the $3000 rears. I thought a man was supposed to go to jail for not making their child support. If I had been in another state, he would of had to come up with the money or go to jail. Well, he's Arabic and works for someone Arabic. They forged pay stubs saying he only worked part time for less than minimum wage. I pointed it out to the judge, the pay stubs were less than minimum wage and he told me I had to hire a private investigator and prove he was lying, that it's not his job to do that. So, I figure why bother taking him to court, every time we go to court, they reduce his payments and drop anything he owes in back support. This year, he claims he is not working. However, two days after he told me that, my son called him to ask him to pick him up and he said he can't, because he had to work. Then Monday when my daughter lost one of her contacts, I told her to call him and ask him to take her and pick one up until Saturday, she was gone for almost two hours and I asked her where they went, she said "Dad had to stop by his job for a few minutes and do something." That's funny, when I called him last Saturday to start making his child support, once again he said, he's not working and doesn't even have money for food. Really? He expects me to believe that when he keeps telling the kids he has to work or takes them to stop by his job for a minute. He must think I am really stupid.

My ex hates the idea of my husband and I doing anything together, so he makes it difficult on us. On his day to take them, if we go anywhere he drops them off early so we have to come home. I have to tell the kids call me before you come so I can make sure I am there if we go anywhere. What does he do? He drops them off early whenever I tell them to call me about a half hour before you come home.

To add to the mayhem, the diamond fell out of my diamond ring over the weekend. Thank God, I did get the protection plan. But, the sales representative at JcPenney's tried to get me to say may I was rough on my jewelry and is it possible it caught on the lint filter or something while cleaning it. They always try and talk you into buying the protection plans or warrenties, then when you try and use them, they give you a hard time and try and get out of honoring the plan.

So, I figure why bother being happy about my upcoming birthday, because I know it is time for all hell to break loose and I was broke out in hives by Sunday from all the stress.

Schools Back In Session

It is time for school to go back in session. When the end of the year is coming, it's funny how you can't wait for them to get out of school so you longer have to wake up so early in the morning. Then by the end of summer, you can't wait for them to go back to school, so you have some peace and quiet during the day. I still don't escape having a house full of kids. I am the only mom of my kids friends who works out of their home, so I have four extra kids by 7am. The bus stop is directly across the street from our house and on the way to the school. So, our house is where the kids are meeting.

Summer just seemed to fly by this summer with all the trips back and forth to North Carolina and the kids spending two weeks in North Carolina with their grandparents. But, I am so ready for them finally to go back to school. It's been a busy summer this year and the kids were at each others throats more than usual this past summer. I don't know if it is the hormones or they are both in middle school now or a little of both. They are both entering into puberty and their personalities are changing. They are only a year apart and one is a girl and one is boy, so they are both entering puberty around the same time.

It's funny to see how they are both so concerned with their appearance. My son wanted his hair dyed blond and my daughter wanted highlights. I was a little surprised he doesn't look too bad as a blond, considering his natural hair color is black. When he gets dressed, he leaves a trail of cologne behind him where ever he walks. This year he changed the style of clothing he wears slightly, he still wears the dreaded skinny jeans, but he no longer wears the goofy t-shirts and he wants to walk to school with his friends. God help me, he has two different girls he has been texting all summer and one of them he claims is his girlfriend.

Sammy changed her hairstyle slightly, she looks like a little teenager with her highlights and her bangs cut into a side swipe and pushed to the side. She now curls her hair and I find her down stairs exercising. Her and her step-father go back and forth over her clothes. I think she likes giving him a heart attack. Because, she laughs when he says something to her about her clothes. He's not ready for her to start looking like a young teen girl and says he' going to purchase a gun to chase away the boys with now that she is starting middle school this year.

It is amazing how fast they grow over the summer. It's like with all the sunshine they get running around outside, they grow with the plants and flowers. They always seem to have this big growth spurt over the summer. Adam can reach the second shelf in the cabinet to get the granola bars down. I can't reach the granola bars on the second shelf, he is taller than me now. I have to climb on the counter or get a stool to reach the second cabinet. Sammy now wears the same size shoe as me and goes into my closet to get into my high heals to walk around the house in them. Nothing ever fits them, except for shirts and their shorts by the end of summer. Their jeans get to short and too tight and they can no longer fit into the shoes they wore at the end of the school year. By the end of summer they need a complete new wardrobe to begin the school year with.

Lack of Time

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Life has been a little crazy with trying to find someone to replace my roof, getting the kids ready for school, school orientations and working on opening an online store. Trying to find drop shippers is a lot work. I'm having trouble finding a reliable drop shipper that carries all the products I am looking to sell on my site. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions are welcome.

I am having trouble finding a descent job, so I decided to employ myself and pave my own path. I send out probably around fifty resumes a month and nothing seems to come up. I am tired of waiting for a job to come up, I figure it is time to stop waiting and do something about it. I am hoping this will turn into a reliable business that will give me the opportunity to open my own store soon, possibly in the next year or two.

Mommy Daughter Day

I enjoyed my day yesterday with my little girl. Well, she's not so little anymore, but she will always be my little girl. I think she enjoyed the quiet time too. Her mood was better than it has been in a while. I tried taking advantage of my son staying at his friends house and my oldest moved out again. My little sweetheart has had a rough summer, she lost her best friend right after the start of summer and she had to deal with her new found friend coming to visit her monthly and to add to it, she will be starting middle school this year when she returns to school. I can only imagine how scary that may be for her to have to start middle school with out her best friend. So, it's been a very emotional summer for her this year.

We walked to some of local stores close by to wander around and see what interesting things we could find, watched Rio, which was a very cute movie and I helped her put her room back together, so she can reclaim the top of her dresser, so she can actually use it for her things. Then she sat with us and watched Paper Hearts before going to bed. She enjoyed Paper Hearts, but it was a little hard for me to stay interested in the movie.

She found a curling iron she wanted that has different attachments. She insists she is old enough for a curling iron and she needs one to do her hair with this year, because I don't like her using mine because it gets too hot. It's like she went from playing with Barbie dolls to big girl stuff over night. I bought her an electric razor for girls, because the thought of her using a regular razor scares me. I'm afraid, she will cut a big gash in her leg or something while she's shaving.  

I think it's harder when the baby starts growing up, especially when they're a girl. I have to refrain from putting her hair in the cute little pig tails. She's growing out of the pig tails and graduating to a curling iron. Barbie Dolls and pig tails are a thing of the past. Now she is reminding me, she needs her eye brows waxed before going back to school.

My son started with the big boy stuff around the same age. But, it's a little different with boys. He started with wanting cologne, deodorant and Axe shampoo. So, it was a little easier. Now, he's into liking girls and always having a girl friend. Well, at least what they refer to as having a girl friend is. Such as texting one another and an occasional school dance. Which isn't too bad. It was funny when his best friend told me when he was in another room that "Adam and his girl friend tell each other the "L" word. The only thing he does that I have trouble with is, he doesn't want anyone picking up his phone and when he gets grounded he has to hand over his phone. But, before doing so, he deletes the messages as quickly as possible. Well, there's that and it is no longer cool to go anywhere with his parents, he would rather be with his friends as much as possible. Which, I am okay with as long as I know where he is at all times and he stays out of trouble.

My two youngest are only a year apart and my oldest just graduated from high school a year ago. So, I have had a lot of coming of age to deal with in the past year. I think I am finally starting to accept all the changes going on with my children. It just makes me realize, I need to enjoy all those little days I can get with my children now while I still can, before they are all grown up and on their own.

80's Flash Back

My youngest was looking up videos on You Tube. The funny thing about it is they are always calling us old. However, they are hijacking our music and our clothes. She knows the words to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Hey Mickey. Those are just starters for the 80's song lyrics she has memorized.

My Baby Graduated From The 5th Grade Today

My baby graduated from the 5th grade today. It was so hard, especially when Mr. Bateman announced they were the graduating class of 2018. I cried, then the teachers cried and I cried again, then when we went to go get her she was crying, because she was sad to be leaving the elementary school and I cried some more. Shh... even her brother had a few tears in his eyes, which I did not expect at all. That's when it hit me, my baby will be graduating in 7 years and my son will be graduating in 6 years. It's almost over and they will be all grown up and going off to college before you know it. Graduating the 5th grade is such a milestone in their life, next year she will be going on to middle school and everything will begin changing. Before I know it, there will be boys and dances then the prom. I am so not ready it for it.
My little princess insisted on wearing her pageant dress, she is such the little diva. Surprisingly, she wasn't the only child in a formal. There were a few girls in formal and one of our neighbor's boys was wearing a pin striped suit and top hat. It was too cute.

Holiday Fun

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend. I know our family had a great time. We had a family barbecue with our friends and family. Memorial Day is probably one of my favorite holidays, it is one of those holidays where you don't have all the pressure of getting gifts, the family comes together to kick off summer and have fun. Summer barbeques are what memories are made of, they are some of my fondest memories growing up. Most of us remember those fun times we had at the family barbeques playing with our cousins growing up.

I always try and make it extra fun for the kids, so they have a great time. We got them poppers, sparklers, sidewalk chalk and glow in the dark necklaces, so they wouldn't get bored. I enjoy watching them playing and having fun together. It was actually amusing to watch them all running down the sidewalk on bikes, scooters, and skate boards together. My husband said "It looks like the Fat Albert Gang." I think they were louder than the adults, especially when we got the fire pit going to roast marshmallows. But that's what it's all about, having fun together. Lets not forget the real reason that brings us all together for Memorial Day, remembering the our countries, vets.