Abby's blog

my mom let me get a blog. I'm blogging about animals and pets that I have had. I know that some of my aunts blog and thought maybe you could invite my cousins to read my blog.
this is my blog address:
http://abbyspets.blogspot.com/

Powder Puff Pinewood Derby

Abby's Activity Day Girls had a Pinewood Derby last Thursday Night. We had so much fun working on her car. If you can't tell from the pictures, it was a fabulous glitter-encrusted iPod car. Her music of choice for the night: Brooke White.  

Her car took 3rd Place! 

 

All the cars that raced that night. Actually one is missing. It was this cute little orange tennis shoe car. Not sure why it isn't here.

 Her car in action!

 

Some of the races were really close. Adam was recording the races right at the finish line and they had to refer to the video a couple of times.

Getting set up to race.

 Receiving her trophy!

 The top 3 racers!

 All of the Activity Day Girls.

She was so excited and did great!

My Random Thoughts for the Day...(a.k.a. my blah, blah blog post for Melissa)

I hate this little blue and yellow tunnel ("time tunnel" as Tommy calls it) laying in my living room! It is wearing through on every side, I've even tried to patch it up on the one end with duck tape but I can not stand the thought of getting rid of it! It takes up so much room, the kids are obnoxiously loud when they play in it and it is a pain to collapse it down to tie it up when play time is over. I look forward to the day when it is so worn out that there is no other option than to toss it! I guess then I will have a good excuse to do so. We have too many toys. It's hard to decide what to get rid of. I rotate them on occasion but I am running out of room to store them when they are not in use. Maybe I am a hoarder of toys. I watched the first season of Hoarders. Scary stuff! Sad, really.

Today I folded and put away 4 loads of laundry, left Adam's clothes for him to put away. He's a big boy and highly capable. I straightened and lightly cleaned the bathroom, did the dishes, including the pans that have to be hand washed which usually end up sitting dirty on the counter until I have to wash it because I need it to cook dinner that night. I swept the kitchen extra good, but now looks like it needs it again. I washed the dining room table down, not just the top but the sides, legs and underside where Abby wipes her sticky, ketchup hands instead of using her napkin. Washed and dried a load of towels, but I have to confess, they are still sitting in the dryer and probably will remain there until tomorrow at least.  Today was a good day for house cleaning. I am not usually this productive, especially lately. I have had a hard time focusing on one thing. Why do I have such a hard time getting things done sometimes? Maybe I am just too lazy? No motivation? Poor use of my time? I like having a clean house, I just don't like to be the one to clean it. I like to use the excuse that my house is just too small and if I only had a bigger house.... Wow, this is sounding really sad and depressing. I guess I am just frustrated with myself at my lack of "doing". 

I just got Jillian Michaels' 30 day Shred. I am scared to try it. It sounds painful. 

I hate the word, "why" right now. Right now, "why" is Tommy's favorite word. 

I've learned that if I smile when Tommy is really driving me nuts, I don't get quite as annoyed. Tommy is picking up on some words from me that make me laugh. No, not cuss words. He says things like, "you making me fusstwayted" or "you making me ANGWY!". Even though they are not the worst things a kid could say, I realize that I am saying these things to him too often and I need to be more loving, hence the smiling. It really helps! 

Tommy has this thing with smells, mostly bad smells and throws a fit when he doesn't like what he is smelling. The other day though, he was so cute. I gave him a kiss on his cheek when he was playing on the computer and he turned to me and said, "I wuv your kisses mommy, but I don't wuv your stinky breath." 

I really want to post pictures but Adam upgraded our computer and now iPhoto doesn't work. As soon as I can convince Adam to leave his laptop home for a day or two I can post some really cute pictures of Tommy's birthday and Abby's activity day pinewood derby last night. 

Blah blah for now!

I decided it was finally time to get on here and update the ol' blog. So many things have happened around here that it is hard to decide where to start. My last post was about the girls first day of school but now it is almost the last day of the school. Poor Emily's first experience of school has been such a roller coaster. The school district thought it would be a great idea to put the kindergartners on this crazy "A/B" schedule. She goes to school all day Mondays, Thursday, and supposedly every other Wednesday.  It has been frustrating for her to not have that consistency and I feel like she hasn't progressed in her learning as much as she should have. I am hoping to spend a lot of time on her reading and math skills this summer. I had a friend point out that everyone else will be just as behind as she is next year but I don't plan on being in this school district for the rest of her school years. I would like to move out of this tiny condo at some point and who knows where will end up. Besides, who really wants your kids to be behind in school ever? I had another friend recommend a workbook called "Explode the Code" to help her with her reading. I might have to invest in that this summer.

Other happenings...Adam graduated from the Art Institute of Portland last December! But now student loans are coming due and our income hasn't changed. He re-applied for deferment. The first time they approved it for about a day but then called him up and said we are 28 days behind and owe a bunch of money. It wasn't too horrible so he paid it of course but this month it is about 7 times that amount for some reason and there is no way we can afford that so we are hoping for the deferment again. Then we will have to consolidate with another loan company. Oddly enough, I don't feel too stressed about it all because I know it will work out.

On her birthday. She really wanted a tiara. She even wore it to school that day. She is a bit of a diva and knows it!

Abby is doing great in school. I think she is finally at a math level where she is being challenged sufficiently. Now if I can only get her to do her homework at night instead of in the morning right before we leave for the bus stop. She is loving Activity Days. She gets to go to the day camp this year and is so excited for it. I am looking forward to going with her for one of the days. They do so many great things with these little girls. It is really helping her mature and prepare for the Young Women program.

Oh, yeah, and she was baptized just a bit ago! She was really good about being spiritual and learning about what it means to be baptized but man, I could have pinched her at the baptism. She was so concerned about getting it done and over with so she could run off and play with her best friend, Ryland. Funny story, the first thing she did after she was baptized: made an armpit fart. Yep, an armpit fart! What an angel! 

Tommy, what can I say about Tommy? All BOY! Except for the part where he likes the color pink, likes to wear the girls headbands/tiaras, and will pick out Barbie movies to watch in the afternoon. I was going to say he has a sensitive side but that would be lying. He just really looks up to his sisters! 

Emily's birthday party

Emily's birthday cake I made!

We took the kids to the Starlight Parade in Portland. This was before it started and they were able to play out in the streets of downtown. 

The wonderfully awesome cupcakes I made for our Girls Camp fundraiser!

*I forgot to mention that I hand sculpted the roses out of marshmallow fondant!

Back To School Party '09

I decided to copy an idea I found on a blog and celebrate the start of a new school year in a new, fun way. We had their favorite meal, pizza of course, served on our garage sale china plates. They both were the "princesses" for the evening and got to show off their first day of school outfits in a fashion show. We talked about what would be expected of them at school, mostly for Emily's benefit since this was her first year. After dinner, the fashion show and yummy ice cream sundaes with all the toppings, their dad gave them each a father's blessing to help them through out their school year.

The girls, ready for their first day of school.

My big Kindergartner

Abby getting on the school bus. 

Emily, in her classroom, next to her best friend from Primary.

After a long, two hour smart start, first day of school.

Abby's second day of school outfit looks like something Cyndi Lauper would wear.

Big Boy Now

I was planing on potty training Tommy next Wednesday but for the last two days, he has been refusing to wear his diaper and only wants to wear his "big boy" underwear. Yesterday he did great! He wore the underwear from about 11 in the morning until bedtime that night. He only had one accident right after he woke up from his nap when he had a bowel movement in his underwear. That always seems to be the hardest to train though. It sure will be nice to not have diapers to change or buy.

Summer 2009 part 2

We went to the park in an attempt to get some cute pictures of the kids. We got a few but for some reason, Abby was in tears practically the entire time. Tommy wasn't cooperating much either.

We went back to the beach again about a month later with my sister and her family. We had a lot of fun playing in the sand and water. We made a fire on the beach and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Nothing like a little grit in your dinner! Crazy thing happened while we sat on the logs, one of the logs had been partially burned but appeared long burnt out so we laid out towels to avoid splinters and sat down. After about ten minutes, Emily's towel started steaming/smoking. I jumped up and pulled her off of it to see two large burning wholes in her towel. It was kind of sad, it was a new beach towel for her that she had used only 2 or 3 times.

My sister and her cute little family

In August, we celebrated Tommy's 2nd birthday.

Summer 2009

I obviously have a lot of catching up to do, but now I can't remember much of what happened since the last time I blogged. So I'll just post some pictures and maybe some of it will come back to me.

The kids played outside a lot. We built our own sprinkler out of PVC pipes and duct tape. I happily had pretty good success with my flowers this year.

We went to the beach, played in the sand, watched the sand castle building competition, flew a kite, and the girls got to ride the horses. They had been begging to so we finally gave in. The cost wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it might be. We had paid for Tommy to ride the pony but she had just given birth to the little baby (above) and didn't want to leave it behind. It worked out okay because Tommy wasn't too thrilled with the idea of getting on it anyway.

This will have to be the first installment of our summer; I just realized how late it is getting to be.