Christmas cookie time!!!

There may be something seriously wrong with me. Every year i go overboard on the holiday baking. But this year I think I out did myself.

I have been baking cookies around the clock for the past 3 days. I have made 9 different types of cookies and 2 different gingerbread muffins. What is funny about all of this is, I am not really baking for anyone in particular. We don't really eat this stuff and nobody requested it or anything. I just got a wild hair. It seems like everybody else was doing it this time of year, so i thought I'd join in. Silly as it is, I totally blame peer pressure. So just to clarify here...I made literally close to 1000 cookies for no real reason other that it seemed like a good idea.

Just in case they come and haul me away, I made sure to document my madness in case some of you may not believe me

Day from H-E double hockey sticks !!

So as some of you may know , my van has been out of commission for the past 2 weeks. It needs a really expensive part that we can't afford to replace right now. Not that anyone ever plans for car repairs, but they always seem to hit at the worst possible time and are never cheap. It sucks too, because you are just driving around, minding your own business, ....when wham!! .."CHECK ENGINE" light comes on. So I think ..."Oh I'm sure it's nothing serious, I mean it's running fine. No weird noises or clunks." WRONG!!! It needs something replaced (I'm not being vague here, I don't remember what it was. My husband takes care of that stuff) not just a cheap something. An $1,100 something. Oh and by the way, I shouldn't drive it until that gets fixed. What the heck!!??

So luckily my husband has his car that we can fall back on. He has a Subaru that we got when we first got married.We bought it brand new right off the lot. It was our first big purchase , has been paid off and we love it to tears, however....it's too small for all five of us. I have to really fight hard to fit 3 car seats in the back seat. All of my kids are still in car seats. Let me just say that they are in....but barely.

Let me also point out that my husband works downtown and his business won't kick in for a bus pass or parking permit, so I have to drive him to and from work every day. I have been doing this for the past 7 years, so by now it's no big deal, just a part of my day. But it's safe to say that between shuttling Bug and my husband, we spend a lot of time in the car. Last year I figured it out and on average (Not including days that I have to go to Costco or something) I spend about 2 hours a day everyday driving everyone around.

Anyhoo....my husband calls me about noon and doesn't feel well. We're all still sort of reeling from this weekend's flu. So I drop everything and load up Sunshine and Peanut. I get him and then on the drive home, the car starts to make a noise. Sort of like a pinging noise. Luckily we were about 10 blocks from home so I'm not too worried. But then I stop at a red light. My husbands says " Ha Ha...Wouldn't it suck if the car dies right here?! yeah that would really suck."..........green light. Nothing. turn the key....nothing. "OH SNAP!!! it totally died right here!"


I thank the Lord everyday that I have AAA. It has come in handy more times than I would like to admit. They got me a tow on the way, but you can't take car seats in a tow truck (learned that one the hard way) and I had 2 sleeping kids in the back. So we devise a plan. Since we were so close to home, my husband ran (and I mean literally because the tow truck was on the way) home and got the van (we weren't supost to be driving) so that we could at least get the kids out of there.

Also...if all this wasn't bad enough. it was pouring down rain and I mean cats and dogs. And we were blocking traffic on a busy highway, so everyone who didn't see our hazards on took the liberty to honk and let us know who was #1. Good times :)

So my husband gets the van and we get the kids all transferred over. Our tow truck comes and we had the car looked at. Somehow I ended up with metal in my oil tank and it essentially destroyed my engine. So that car is not just unusable , but totaled. They would have to completely replace the entire engine. So now we have no car at all.

Luckily my mom had a car we could borrow, so we have a loaner. But we are now just going to have to get the van fixed sooner than later. This is one of the frustrations of living off a single income. We really have to make money stretch to support all five of us. We live paycheck to paycheck. So when something broadsides us, we don't have much other choice than to get buried in debt. It's very frustrating. I know most people live off credit cards and get by just fine, but we are trying very hard not to do that.

We are very blessed that my in-laws have agreed to loan us some money to get our repairs done. We really are thankful . Luckily tax season is coming up soon. Maybe we can start again next year :)

Very dangerous laundary basket

So when you have babies, you baby proof your house with all of the obvious dangers. Guns, knives, Chinese throwing stars. These are the obvious things that would clearly hurt a baby.

Ok having said that. I want to point your attention to the not so obvious.....

When learning to walk and walk well, you must take a few tumbles along the way.

When taking said tumbles.....try not to fall cheek bone first into the edge of a laundry basket in the middle of the floor. Because you wouldn't want to end up with an enormous shiner that just looks downright suspicious would you?

End result...

Laundry basket - 1
Peanut - 0

So I'm tweeking with my blog a little.

One of the things I really don't like about blogging is that you can't easily do cutesy backgrounds like you can with myspace. That's one of my favorite parts of myspace is that you can decorate for random holidays.
Luckily I am married to a super nerd who just so happens to be fluent in Html. For those of you non mouth breathin, neck beard types, thats computer talk for he knows how to make cool stuff for my blog. Out of thin air it would seem.

What it amounts to is prepare yourself, because I get bored really easily when I have look at the same thing too long, so expect the theme and colors to change; with the seasons at the very least.

Just fair warning :)

What do you think so far? Not bad for a nice winter theme? I don't know how I feel about the colors yet. I'll keep you posted.

My little entrepreneur

So I was going upstairs to put something away and I hear "hey..lady...wanna buy a carrot?"

I look around and realize that I had just been solicited by my daughter. Upon closer inspection I realize she has made a little "fruit stand" in her door way.

It was just so cute I had to share it.

Update...

We are mostly over our flu. Bug is feeling completely back to his ornery self. Sunshine never got any of it and Peanut just ran a little fever and that was it. My husband and I are still sick and sleep deprived, but this is what we signed on for when we had kids, so here we are.

The kids really aren't all that sympathetic with us still being sick. Now that they feel better they have boundless energy and are ready to get up and go. Peanut was up at 5:30 this morning ready for breakfast. Naturally, if one is up, then all of them are up. It's just the nature of the beast. So needless to say I'm feeling a little grumpy this morning.

I'm debating whether or not I will go to church this morning. There is always an uprising with the kids when they miss Sunday school. They are mad about it until about Wednesday. They really like Sunday school. I just don't feel like going though. Would it be wrong to drop the kids off and then come back home to go to bed? :)

I kid! Come on!!

Six year olds and scissors...

They generally make for a bad mix. I know that kids need to learn how to use scissors and all, but why oh why do they always go straight for the hair cutting?

Let me preface this by saying that I had gotten Bug a haircut the day before, and it was really overdue. He has the type of hair that is really thick and grows really fast. (Just like his Dad) So if I don't get his hair cut at least once a month, he gets what we call at our house "Bruce Lee hair". A big fluffy mushroom that goes everywhere. So anyway, he had just gotten a nice new haircut and looked all slick. Naturally everyone noticed and gave him compliments on his new do. Well, my guess is he wanted to take his new look to 11. So hew took matters into his own hands (Which just happen to be holding a pair of safety scissors)

And VIOLA!! We have ourselves a fabulous new look.

Like I said, all kids do this, but my only beef is....why oh why did it have to be right in front? So now we have this giant bald spot right in front. I can tell already that our Christmas pictures are going to rock! Between Sunshine's giant cat scratch across her face (see previous post) and Bug's rad new makeover.

They crack me up!

Barf-a-rama ** Not for the faint of heart!!

So I was awoken at 2 am this morning to ..."mommy, I don't feel very good." I rolled over, saw Bug and before I could really open both eyes, heard .."I think I might BBLAHHHTTT." All over me and my side of the bed. Ahh the joys of motherhood!

So after several episodes , we got him settled and back in bed. Then I had to clean up the mess and go back to bed myself. It's unpleasant on it's own, but it was really getting to me. Much more than usual. Then it hit me..."Oh NO!! I'm going to barf!!"

Somewhere along the way we all picked up a flu bug that hit all of us. luckily, Sunshine and Peanut spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. So they were gone. But in the end, I ended up sleeping the rest of the night in Sunshine's bed and my husband spent the night on the couch. I am really grateful that they were gone because once the baby gets woken up in the night, he's up. So really it was better that they were gone.

We've just been sort of crawling thought our day today. Sunshine and Peanut came home and we've just been sort of taking turns wrangling kids. i really didn't want Sunshine and Peanut to come home and pick this up, but nobody really could watch them.

Right now I'm off to give a newly feverish Peanut a bath to calm him down. We are all just achy and running a fever. No fun for anyone!

Oh the injustice!

So this is just one of the many injustices of being the only girl with 2 brothers. we never seem to have any girly band aids around.

This after a nasty run in with Annabelle our cat. Anabelle won. Sunshine likes to sneek up on her and give her rough "surprise love". Poor Anabelle just was net feeling it today.

Luckily we had plenty of Superman band aids on hand.

Help!! I'm lost in an ocean of toys!!

So almost all of my Christmas shopping is done. Now comes the part I hate the most....wrapping everything!

I got it all spread out and just sort of panicked. Where am I going to put this stuff? I'll just start with a few "practice" presents under the tree. Just to see if Sunshine and Peanut will leave everything alone. We'll find out tomorrow I guess.