This, That and the Other Thing

There's a couple of things I've been meaning to blog about but have been too busy or too tired.
You don't mind if I just throw them all together in one jumbo post, do you? Good. (Don't worry. To make my ramblings more interesting, I'll add some pictures too.)
Should I number each random thing? Sure, why not?

1. What do you get when two parents love their daughter so much and their daughter happens to home school their grandchildren and you happen to be that daughter?

A beautiful basket full of fruit and flowers delivered to your door. In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. And a thank you card for doing such a great job at teaching their grandchildren.


Yes, it totally made my day. I love my parents.
(all pictures taken by Little Miss Chatterbox)

2. Boys do the craziest things.
or maybe It's just THIS boy.

(photo by Kelly)

Isn't he handsome?
Well, two weeks ago he looked like this.

And the next day it got a bit more swollen a looked like this:
He was playing with his sword (Mike and I have finally gotten rid of those things! They have caused more injuries than I'd like to admit... so now Mr. Funny and Mr. Tickle use paper towel rolls, Popsicle sticks, the vacuum hose and whatever else suits their fancy as swords) and as he swung it down, the tip got stuck in the carpet and he tripped right over it, into the corner of the metal leg on our sofa table. Ouch.
Then on Monday, after Mike's softball game, we played at the playground and he bumped his nose on the slide. He had a bloody, swollen nose but at least his eye was almost healed already!
Then the day after, he was running downstairs WITH HIS EYES CLOSED (I told you boys do crazy things) and ran right into the wall, hitting his nose. Now it's really, really bruised. And looks a little crooked. But no one else seems to think so. I hope I'm just seeing things.
Boys will be boys??

3. I had a wonderful Mother's Day.
I can't get over the fact that I have such beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful, wonderful children and that soon there will be four. I spend many minutes everyday just watching them and wondering how I got so lucky. I am so blessed. I am even more blessed to have a husband to share them with who I love so, so much. He surprised me with a climbing rose bush and a hydrangea. I'll take pictures when he gets them planted. He also gave me the sweetest card which brought tears to my eyes. I have read it a couple more times because Mike is not a man of many words. But the man knows how to write. Which I completely understand. It's an introvert kinda thing. ;)

(aren't the little love birds on the front adorable? I love it!)

I also had a great time at my brother's house and got to spend the day with my Mom and grandmother and Aunt. What a great group of mothers!
(photo by Justin)

4. Mike turned 30 this week!
You can tell he's getting old because he didn't want a party. He doesn't like to be around a bunch of drunk people (most likely because he WAS one of those drunk people for so many years and prefers not to re-live those days) and all he wanted was to hang out at home with his wife and kids. Okay, maybe that doesn't prove that he's getting old. It proves that he's getting smarter. ;) What can I say? We're definitely homebodies.
He had a softball game that day and they FINALLY got to play again after missing the last five scheduled games due to rain. To make it more special for him, I invited his parents, siblings and grandfather to come and watch him play. I think he was really excited about having his Pops there to cheer him on.

Mike played really well and his team won!

I never get tired of watching him do this:


We had crab legs for dinner (On sale at the grocery store! Score!) and I made him a snicker doodle cake. Snicker doodles are his favorite cookie and he loved it as a cake too! It was topped with a really yummy cinnamon butter cream. Mmmmm.....
Here he is, doing his favorite thing. Reading. And surrounded by his favorite things. Baseball and a Rosary. And of course he's decked out in a Dallas Cowboys shirt and has his Atlanta Braves hat on the ground next to him. :)


5. We have a really hard time getting a good picture of all three kids. Here are the shots I tried to get of them with Mike.

Take One:


Take Two:


Take Three:

Alright, enough pictures. Let's eat cake.

And here I am, trying to get a nice picture with all my kids on Mother's Day:

Take One:


Take Two:


Take Three:


Oh, well. At least I got a cute picture of Little Miss Chatterbox! (Thanks for taking the pics, Ju!)


6. I started writing this post on Friday. It is now Tuesday. Where do the days go? I had to do a double take when I looked at the calendar last night. My thoughts were: Tomorrow is May 18th?? WHAT?? May JUST started!! How can it be almost over already?!?! The days fly by like they're hours. It's crazy, I tell you. CRAZY! May will just be a passing moment and then it will be June. THE month I've been waiting for. Our due date is approaching fast. I'm already 34 weeks today. Only six weeks to go.... which brings me to my next train of thought...

7. I must be nesting.
On Friday, I opened the fridge to get some lunch when the filth of my fridge suddenly became very apparent to me. Before I knew it, I was pulling everything out, including the shelves and the drawers. Old food went out, everything was washed and scrubbed, even the inside. When I put everything back I realized I really needed to do some grocery shopping. I love opening my fridge now! It's so clean!
Yesterday, I cleaned and organized my bedroom and was disgusted with the condition of our carpet. When we moved into this house four years ago, Mike and I both said the FIRST thing we would do is replace the carpets. They were old and stained. Stained by a family other than our own. Gross. They had to get out. And here we are, four years later, with the same carpets. I was seriously ready to rip out the carpet right then and there. (I tend to jump the gun when I get an idea in my head. Take my walkway for example.) I'm learning though, and decided to talk to Mike about it first. He suggested that the better thing to do right now is just steam clean the carpet because it's not a good time to renovate the bedroom. And we wouldn't have the money to replace the floor right now anyway. Okay, good point. Steam clean it is. I'm so thankful to have a husband who loves to clean. He wasted no time and was out the door to get the steam cleaner. His sister owns one, so we were able to borrow hers and all he had to buy was cleaning solution. I couldn't believe the amount of dirt that came out of our carpet! It looks so different now and it's actually soft again! Today I'm cleaning the children's bedrooms and Mike is going to steam clean their carpets when he gets home. Clean rooms and carpets!! Yea!! (Now I'm really tempted to go out and buy some paint to paint my room and then get a new bed spread to match. But I can hear Mike now. "One thing at a time, Jodi. Don't you think we should be getting ready for the baby right now instead of re-doing the bedroom?" Yeah. My conscience, the voice in my head, is Mike.) One day, I will have paint on my walls!

8. We really don't have time for indoor projects right now anyway. We've been busy making our yard look beautiful.
I loved being pregnant all through winter and look forward to having a summer baby. I think it's the perfect time for being pregnant. But I was a bit down about not being able to do any of my gardening plans this year. I mean, a pregnant woman 8 months along really shouldn't be out using a shovel. I wouldn't want to go into early labor or anything.
And then, almost miraculously, Mike got a sudden desire to garden. How cool is that? He's been all gung ho, buying and planting trees and bushes and flowers. It's SO awesome. He's got good ideas too and I'm definitely reaping the benefits of it. He turned one corner of the house into a cozy little nook where we can sit and read on nice, warm, quiet days while the kids play on the swing set (and occasionally come over to us to blow bubbles or play catch together). That's what we did on Sunday and it was exactly what I needed. We all had such a nice day. I'm hoping that we will spend more time out there now that it's so comfy! I took some pictures but can't get them to down load right now. I'll have to do their very own post. Mike got the climbing rose in over the weekend and I planted some marigolds around it to try and keep the deer away. We're having more trouble with the bunny who comes in our yard. He ate our new lily that I bought Mike for his birthday and he also ate the blooms off the new azalea bushes Mike planted. Darn bunny.

9. Little Miss Chatterbox had her last day of Montessori school last week and it was also the last day of Atrium for Mr. Funny. As a little end-of-the-year treat, the school had a juggling priest come out and do some tricks for the kids. It was so cool! He juggled basketballs, machetes, bowling balls and even flaming torches. The kids thought it was awesome and we were thankful for the good show. (And thankful that the priest went away unharmed!)


I have videos of him using the machetes and flaming torches but I use my kids real names in the videos so I don't want to post them here. I had a hard time stopping Mr. Funny from playing with the machetes, so in one of the videos you hear his first AND middle name! Crazy little rascal. After the show, one of the woman came over to me and said she had gone on the trip to France with our Church and spent a lot of time with my MIL, who also went. She said that my MIL had non-stop energy and that she thinks Mr. Funny may have inherited that. I agree!

10. Despite the kids being sad about Montessori school being over for the summer, I'm quite thankful! It's an awesome school and I'm so grateful that we can afford to send them, but I'm happy to have our mornings back. It's a lot of work to get the kids awake, fed, dressed and in the car in time to get LMC to class by 9:00. Especially when LMC is not a morning person and would groan and moan and hide under her blanket every morning when I would wake her up. It's quite a challenge to get a grumpy six year old to cooperate when it's time to get dressed and brush her hair. We'll also have more time to finish her Seton schoolwork. I'm really looking forward to getting this years work DONE because I have a curriculum that I think the kids will enjoy better for next year and I want to try it out over the summer to see how it goes. I love the laid back feel of summer and look forward to it's lazy hazy days. (After getting back on schedule with a new born, that is)

11. Mr. Tickle hates to wear pants. When I take the time to actually wrestle him into a pair, he cries and screams, "No pants! No pants!"


I finally took them off and he joyfully ran away as fast as he could.
Another reason why I'm looking forward to summer: he doesn't mind shorts.

12. Speaking of Mr. Tickle, we found out last week that he is allergic to Poison Oak. 70% of people are. I'm one of the lucky 30% who isn't bothered by it. I've never had it in my life nor have I ever seen a rash caused by it. So when Mr. Tickles legs and arms started looking like this:
I wasn't sure what to think of it. But then Mike's uncle came by and spotted it right away as a poison ivy rash. he refers to himself as a "poison ivy expert" and told me some horrible stories about getting it when he was a kid. He and a few of his siblings are highly allergic to the stuff. He told me to give Mr. Tickle a bath and use dish soap. The oil from the plant is what will cause the rash to spread and regular soap won't get it off. After the bath, he said to cover it with camomile lotion and not to put clothes on him until it completely dries. So that is what I did and the rash was so much better the next day. It also stopped spreading and Mr. Tickle was much more comfortable. I'll have to keep my eye out for this nasty plant more carefully now! We had poison oak growing up the side of the house so I'm guessing that's where he came in contact with it. Mike ripped it out, but his uncle said the oil can stay on a surface for up to a year and so if Mike touched a doorknob or maybe even picked Mr. Tickle up after pulling out the poison oak, he could have easily spread it to him.

13. I had a dream last night that I went into labor with Little Miss Sunshine at one of Mike's aunts house and ended up giving birth in her bathroom. I think I'll stay away from that house until after she's really born. In the hospital.
She had black hair and green eyes. That would be awesome! And I remember thinking in the dream, "Man, this baby doesn't look like me either!" Hahaha. I guess I'm subconsciously hoping that this baby looks like her Mama. It would be nice since, ya'know, I'm the one who carries them for nine months and takes care of their every need. But, whatever. I guess Mike has a big part of it too, so it's okay if they all look like him. ;) With Mr. Funny being the exception of course, since he looks just like my brother, Justin. That might be as close as I get to having a child who looks like me.
I was pretty disappointed to wake up and not have my sweet little baby in my arms. But then I remembered how unprepared I am for her arrival and was glad to know that I have six more weeks (or probably more).

Well, I think I've taken up enough of your time! (And mine!) I better go clean up the kids rooms!
Why don't you listen to some nice jazz music before returning to your work week? Enjoy!