OOOOOOOklahoma!

We had such a fabulous time camping with the Sullivan's and the Dean's at Broken Bow, Oklahoma this past weekend! Mrs. Awesome (AKA Lauraleigh) played Redneck Cleopatra very well atop the tube with her BLL! Tammy had a Happy Birthday (39)! The boys caught 'em a nice long snake! And finally, I got to ski! I really enjoyed lazing around on the float with "the girls"! The little ones all jumped off the top of the party barge (thanks Dean's for bringing your barge), and even Tammy was talked into tubing with us on our boat (after much ado! But she did it with pictures to prove it)! The water was clear and the sun was hot! I even managed to get some "Big Ass" recipes from our own Tammy (not the Sweet Potato Queen herself, but she could be! And you HAVE to read the Sweet Potato Queen's Big Ass Cookbook if you do not know the other Tammy I am talking about! The author is Jill Connor Browne-I think!) The first recipe is a fabulous dip and soooo easy! Mix a pack of FIESTA Ranch (you know the packets they sell by the mayo stuff, but not just regular ranch) and a 16oz. sour cream for an eat-yourself-fat dip! We enjoyed it with Ruffles potato chips! Tammy swore she gained at least three pounds over the three days! That always signifies a great trip! The other delicious thing she made was a fabulous Caesar Pita! Take a pita and cut it in half. Fill the pita with pre-cooked chicken pieces. Add lettuce, tomato, parmesean cheese (or provolone), and pour Caesar dressing all over the top of it! OMG, it was so good! Lauraleigh made fabulous muffalettas! She took sweet rolls and cut them in half, added provolone cheese, olives and olive juice, and salami, and cooked them for a few minutes in the oven to toast and melt the cheese! Sooo fattening-which means it was divine! I promise we swam and tubed and skipped rocks and rode in the boat more than we ate, but the eating was good! My rugrats came back with both memories and sun (but not too burned)!

Today was one of those LAZY days of summer that it seems we have had very few of this year! The kids are running around in clothes that don't match, if they even managed to put shorts on at all! Our hair is not brushed, neither are our teeth. We are reading and playing on the computer and chasing each other with the water spray bottle inside the house because it is too hot outside! I do enjoy these few days in life! You would really laugh (or cry) if you could see the laundry piled on the couch, the crumbs on the floor, and the dishes (and finger nail paint) in the sink! But I feel like today should just be lazy. I hope you have time in your life to enjoy being lazy with your rugrats as well! It is so worth it! Ya'll come visit us on the farm!

Sleepover Madness!

The girls had funky hairdo fun the other night when Erica and Emilee spent the night! Erica won first place! They are so innocently fun at this age! I wish all my friends would still come over to play and pull my hair in a hundred different directions at midnight at night! We could wake MY MOM up to take pictures! What a fun summer!

Housecleaning helpers or no help...

After working in my classroom all day (the kids had "Terrific Tuesday" fun at the church) I came home to spend some time with my angels and get a few things done around the house! Ok, I know I am tired, but my children DO NOT HEAR ME when I speak. They tend to lose their hearing at around two years old in my family (it must be hereditary because their daddy does it, too!) I dropped them off in a huff up at Big Daddy's today after two hours of fighting with them to get anything done! I swear, I am worn out after making them DO anything! I had to chase them with the wooden spoon- I know I should have used it, but I was concerned that two blogs in a row about spanking my children would definitely have garnered the CPS's attention- to get them to halfway fold THEIR clothes today. Then I had to follow them with the bucket to the laundry room to get them to bring it to me. I was trying to make a point that when I asked them to bring me the bucket they were going to bring it to me (you know, the whole I am the mother thing! Especially after the humiliation at Wally World the other day!) I had to physically walk them into the living room to the bucket, lean over them so that they would lean over, push their fingers to grip the sides of the bucket, pick it up while holding their hands on it, and walk us to the dryer! (Now do you see why the wooden spoon would have been much more efficient?!) Now, after getting the clothes out of the dryer I asked them to bring me the dirty clothes. Well, I am sad to say my children have all grown deaf AND mute. So we did the whole walk with them trip again around the house to gather clothes. FUN FUN!!! Seriously, I wanted to pull their ears off by now! I looked on MY bed, now this is MY BED mind you, and someone had opened a package of crackers and left them on my bed! Well, Laura found that to be a fabulous snack all over my comforter! I asked the girls to bring me the broom and a dustpan (And told them the whole I didn't make the mess thing...) and got NO response. I ended up going to get the broom myself while uttering a few nice words under my breath. I made them some supper later and reminded them that their food was on paper plates to please throw them away when they were done. I reminded them that Laura liked to get into the food! It must have been a monumental task that I asked of them, because I came around the corner to find Laura covered in ketchup and bananas not two seconds after I set their food in front of them and from ketchup not from her own plate. (Literally, I walked back into the kitchen to make my plate! Needless to say, I never ate!) I looked in their room and their drawers were all open with clothes hanging out, not a shoe in the closet it seemed, and their whole comforter was pulled off the bed! I told them to pick it all up and that I would return in a while to check on their progress. Well, let's just say that it was still on the floor a while later when I went on my to-be-mentioned outing. I calmly asked Ann Cherie to run around and gather all the dirty dishes (which are theirs, of course!) and she told me she was BUSY-wait for it- ON THE COMPUTER! Well, that did it! I walked them out to the car with no shoes and no shorts in the rain and dropped them off at their Dada's house where their daddy had conveniently needed to work on his boat his last two days off! I left for Shreveport! I feel much better now. It is amazing how a spray tan, a Starbucks (a caramel machiato-with whole milk-I didn't skimp on calories tonight!), and another hour of whining to my mom on the phone revive your reason for living! My little rugrats...I swear...and mom, you can be proud! I did not climb into a book to hide away! I got away- all the way to Shreveport! YEAH!

Trouble Part 2...

My friend from high school, Jennifer Sykes, summed the wal-mart saga up better than I ever could have with this facebook response to the link to my blog (I am still laughing):

"And I thought our shopping trips were bad!! My favorites are the old ladies who are giving you dirty looks for something...not disciplining your child, disciplining your child, screaming child, whining child, loud child, candy to said child to stop all of the above, no candy to said child for doing all of the above! I mean, seriously, do not judge me or my child until you have walked in our shoes and lived through our day! Hope tomorrow is better!"

I totally relate to that!! LOL! Thanks, Jennifer! Even my mom (as I moaned and whined about the whole fiasco on the phone for an hour) acted as if I was letting my children take control and how I could do a better parenting job next time. I remember her saying, "...next time I would let them know they were not going to make a peep, not with me. I would dare them to touch anything, if they were with me. I would make them think run and hide around the store if they were with me!" This is the same grandmother who spent $300 last time she was in Wal-Mart with only two of my children and bought everything they could even imagine wanting just to keep them happy! Oh the saga continues! My rugrats...I swear!

Trouble with a capital W

Ok, I think I smoked crack in my sleep last night, because I decided to take all three kids to WALMART today! That should be enough said, but I will indulge my readers. I should have known I was in for it when I drove up and all three kids were asleep in the back. I had been talking to mom on the drive there, and I didn't even realize how quiet it had been! So anyway! Waking my kids up is like waking up the bear cubs! Ann Cherie jumped out of the van like a zombie still in the "don't know where I am and can't find my shoes" state. Maggie and Laura just started screaming. Well, seeing as I can't carry all three in, my eyes started searching for extra buggies. Of course, this is the one day there are NO EXTRA buggies ANYWHERE in the whole parking lot to be had. So I grab Laura up to find out she has taken off her shoes, only one of which can now be located. Oh well, who needs shoes? After that search was called off, I grabbed her up again and proceeded to drag Maggie out of the van. The whole while Ann Cherie is standing there telling me how Maggie wakes up cranky, and that I ought to be leaving her alone for a while! No crap! While I do what? Twiddle thumbs; look for my sanity...really! Thanks for the info, baby! I finally drag my entire family INTO the store! Now to grab a buggy! Would you believe that I had to go through three buggies before I found one that had a working clasp that was not otherwise covered in fecal matter or some such other stinky and sticky goop? And Laura HAS to have the clasp! She loves to stand up and test my mother-of-the-year theory! I try to remember to bring my nice $50 fashionable seat cover, but it rarely ever makes it into the store with my ADD brain- not to mention the above mentioned war that distracts me from the logical. Anyway! We are now finally in the buggy and ready to roll- only to be stopped by the oldest geriatric on the planet that was hired to be the "greeter". Well, I was "greeted" with, "Get that kid off the bottom of the buggy," (Maggie's favorite place to ride, mind you, and the only way I was able to get her to stop screaming when I got her in the store!), "Don't you know she could lose a finger or something in the wheel?" Literally, he said this to me, the already-stressed, haven't spent a penny yet, too young to be mother of three. Well, I informed him that fingers were of very little consequence, that I appreciated his parenting advice, and proceeded to roll away. (Ok, so maybe I wasn't quite so nice, but REALLY!) I only had to worry about her fingers for a miniscule amount of time, because when we pulled up to the bananas she remembered it was her turn to bag. Of course she grabbed the set of bananas that were propping up like a whole side of bananas and they all came crashing down to the ground. So I start picking them up and told Maggie to get after it as well. She stands, crosses her arms, and tells me, "No, I am busy putting my nanas in the baggie. You do it, Mommy." Oh my lordy Jesus. So that was not the time for her to institute her stubbornness, hence, the first pop of the outing. (Yes, it was me hitting my child if surveillance makes national news! So take my kids away or something! I need a break!) Alright! We now have one item in our buggy! Congrats! On to the milk isle! According to my children, I do not buy the “right” yogurt, or the “right” milk (there’s right or white here!), or the “right” cinnamon rolls, etc. Maggie asked for chocolate milk so I told her to grab some! She wanted an individual one. I told her to grab the bigger size so that everyone could have some. She was not having any of that. I gave in and allowed her to keep her individual size as well. Big mistake! She walked the whole rest of the store asking every two seconds for me to open her milk for her. Not only did I not want her wearing it before we left, we also had the little thing of paying for things before we ingest them. I was trying to explain to her that it was stealing to open things and drink them before they were paid for. This did not go over well as she explained how she was thirsty in the immediate sense and not in the after you pay for it sense. And so I was reminded around every turn in Wal-Mart. Well all of this “advice” and the incessant whining of Maggie with her unopened milk earned them the second pop of the trip! What glorious fun (the whining, of course, not the popping!)! Onto the paper isle, the toilet paper of course was too big and infringed on Maggie’s new seating arrangement which was now in the big part of the buggy. Maggie starts screaming how it is smashing her legs and hurting her nose, and of course, her hair will fall out if she is uncomfortable for five minutes. Any other day “stadium seating” is preferential for her, but not today. She was NOT sitting on the toilet paper rolls today. She WAS driving me crazy. Because she could obviously not get happy IN the buggy, she earned the right to get OUT of the buggy, which walking was going to permanently disable her as far as she was letting me and surrounding customers know. I remembered I needed paper plates. So we moved on down and the kids started handing me every package of paper plates and noting the exceptionalities of each one. This one has flowers; this one has lines; this one has ANIMALS! Now we had it! They HAD TO HAVE animal plates for the camping trip! What a terror I provided by negating that decision. I’m sure they heard THAT let down back in automotive. Now, back to the food isles! We went to grab some shredded cheese. I am checking out the 35 different brands, prices, etc. (Seriously, can there really be 35 different ways to shred cheese?) I look up, and NO MAGGIE. I swear. I could not find her! Ann Cherie was the deaf mute again who didn’t see anything or know anything because she is NOT the Momma. Finally, about the time I was going to shout for help from other customers, Maggie sits up. That’s right sits up! She had climbed in and laid down in one of the open center fridgerators behind me! Luckily for her it was quite empty of its contents; unfortunately for me, it hid her little body quite well! Ok, my sanity is SHOT by now! On we press to the ink department. Ann Cherie decides to be bossy. SHE will get the ink down from the wall. SHE knows which one; her daddy showed her, etc., etc. Well she knew it had a red package, but that was it, and the ink we needed was on the very top row. She threw a major crying fit because I told her she could not get the ink. My SEVEN year old is throwing in a fit in the middle of electronics because she can’t get ink down that she can’t reach and doesn’t know the number to get in the first place. Good Lord, where are you? (At a spa in NYC, I presume, certainly not in Wal-Mart in Atlanta, TX! Not that I blame you, Lord. I'm with you in spirit, remember!) Back to the food department, of course there I am the TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, ROTTEN (totally relating to that book right now)…mother because: I will not buy EVERY popsicle and ice cream package on that row; I will not buy every package of candy on the candy isle; I will not buy the girls the movie they just want to go “check” to see if it is in the back of the store; I will not buy them a magazine, or a plastic phone, or a sucker, or a package of sparkly permanent markers (to use on my couches later), or animal plates, or Mac-n-cheese (that we have 16 boxes of at home), or EVERYTHING else that they laid eyes on in the store. OMG, I have had it!!!!! About this time we are getting ready to check out and LAURA who has been relatively silent (miraculously) until then decides she has had enough of her ride! She begins to wail and tries to stand up and starts throwing all of the stuff she can reach behind her in the buggy to the floor as hard as she can. Blackberries and strawberries went everywhere! Instead of helping me pick up the mess, Maggie and Ann Cherie are handing me candy after candy and begging for each one followed with my insistent “No” to each one, and their incessant replies as to their NEED for each one. All the while, Ann Cherie HAS to go to the bathroom, this need of which I am reminded of repeatedly until I could actually take her to the bathroom after checking out! That is when I lost it. I cried the whole time I checked out and most of the way home. The kids have won, I say! I am officially mother-of-the-year- crowned and curtsied! (Well, I am counting my blessings. Laura could have pooped or something!)
Needless to say, my doctor is on speed dial for a tubal ligation appointment first thing in the morning. And mom, you are coming to keep the kids while I recuperate, because you always made out how wonderful we were as kids and how we would love having children of our own. That lie has earned you a few extra days with your grandkids! And I know you lied because you are laughing, which means you can relate, which means I did these same things to you, hence the proof you lied and wherefore your sentence of babysitting these little hellion rugrats…(Welcome to TG&Y…Thank you for shopping at A&P…I remember, and I am INCREDIBLY sorry! I love you!)

Pray for me...

The girls have Frank tied so tight we are looking at amputating that pinky finger (it has been without circulation for so long now)! They barely have to blink an eye or hug a toe and Frankie bends to their will. They only had to halfway ask to go to the lake Wed. and he was packing up the boat. They had been begging us ever since Sunday at Cypress Lake to take them back tubing again. So, we took the girls out on Caddo Lake to ride the tube. Well, they had only tubed the one time before and Louis (our friend and his family) went with each kid as they rode the tube. When we got out on the lake and told AC it was her turn she looked at us and then the tube and said, "I'm goin out by myself this time. Ya'll pray for me." and jumped in the water! It was so funny! The kids had a blast. Even Maggie went alone and held on jumping over the wake! And to think Frankie thought he wanted some boys all this time! Frankie took a spin on the tube while Sherre drove the boat! That was hilarious! Sherre was having a hard time getting the boat to plane out so she put the gas on as high as it would go. Well, when it finally planed, she never let off the gas! Frankie went flying across the water at probably 30 miles an hour! He turned about 4 cartwheels before he finally came to rest in the water! I was laughing so hard that I swear my incontinence got the best of me! I can now say that I've seen a man walk on water! hahahah! Anyway! Little man Jacob was putting the love to L at the lake on Sunday at Cypress. We had so much fun with the Thomas's! The last two lake trips have been fun! Little Lake Rugrats...

Psycho...delic...

Ok, I really am worried about my mother. Today, trying to be mother of the year that I always live up to, I decided it was about time that I tye-died t'shirts with my kids. My mother had given them a nice kit for Cristmas or Easter or some other holiday, and I was feeling guilty for just now getting around to it! Now I am understanding why most people that wore these types of shirts were on DRUGS in the 60s! You would have to be before taking on this project and especially taking it on with small children! First of all, it requires an engineering degree to figure out how to wad the shirts up and put rubber bands on to form the base for the patterns. Then the bottles squirt out the dye at rocket speeds like a high powered shotgun that spreads rapidly and permenantly all over the kitchen floor. (That's another thing- DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TIE-DYE INDOORS!) We did have garbage sacks down, but that never contains rocket paint and 4 year olds. Finally, do not wash any clothes that you want to keep the same colors immediately following the tie-dye t'shirt rinse load (See pic of Frankie in his shirt! lol!). Needless to say, I did make t'shirts with the kids today, but my sanity rinsed right down the purple, blue, yellow sink with the remains of the dye! And if my mother EVER gives the girls a crafty kit like that again, beware it could (and will) be regifted to you! I know it's the thought that counts, Mom, but what were you thinking? Love you mom! And God love my little permanently multicolored rugrats!

Hot Stuff!

These past three weeks have been a whirlwind for our family! Three weeks ago Mom took the two big girls for the week! They went to VBS in Vicksburg at Nonnie's church and did their week of swimming lesson! They had a ball. That same Friday I brought AC's friend over and dropped them both at Warner Tully camp for the weekend. The next Wed. (two days later) we left for Frankie's convention in Lafayette, LA. We returned from that trip Sunday night. Which leads to this week our air conditioning unit condensor motor or something went out. It has been HOT! Luckily, my brother-in-law came to the rescue and ordered us the part we needed to fix it!

I spent 3.5 hours yesterday at the quick care place (oh, if Carrie and Matt could just live closer) because AC got a BAD inner and outer ear infection Thursday. I knew she was sick when she didn't want to swim Thursday night. Well, needless to say, DOCTORS DO NOT WORK on the 3rd of July! (Now I understand that everyone needs a break...HAHA!) I forgot it was the 3rd until both of our doctor's offices didn't answerwhen I tried to call to get an appointment. I asked Frankie why the clinics would be closed... Anyway, we got her a huge bottle of Bactrim and some antibiotic steriod drops and it looks like we are good to go. But, you should have seen the folks at the quick care place! One lady had tatoos from head to toe and had obviously broken her finger. Of course I have ALL THREE KIDS with me and all three kids found that finger fascinating. Then the lady proceeds to tell us how she lives with her daughter and is separated...you get my drift. Another guy I guess had thrown out his back cause everytime he tried to sit down he would scream and cuss and fuss. My kids loved asking loudly what was the matter with him and why he had a trashy mouth, didn't he know better? One lady, and the last I will mention because enough said you know, had both eyes swollen shut and oozing! She just hollered repeatedly for NOONE to touch her that she had had her grandkids all last week and that's what she got for swimming with them and all this week she's had THE pink eye! Not pink eye, THE pink eye, and god bless her soul she did, the worst pink eye case I 'd ever seen!
I need plenty of prayers this week as I will have my niece and nephew all week! God love them and so do I, but I have to manage to outmanipulate 5 children all week this week. Who needs to be a lawyer when you have 5 kids? Well, Aunt Joy has some tricks and trips up her sleeve. (Yes, I am obviously on crack cause I did say TRIPS!) Happy 4th of July and Independence day! I am headed up the hill to eat burgers, cucumbers,watermellon and some peach ice cream fresh from the Louisiana Tech dairy farm (both of my brothers-in-law are showing out this week it seems)! These are God's ways of showing me I will survive! I even walked my 2 miles this morning...on a holiday...that is certainly worth some extra calories! Love you all and GOD BLESS ALL THE RUGRATS this week!