I'll be the one on the ladder

I am done. Almost. As much as I can be. I have done as much school planning as I can. I have one curriculum set that has not been delivered yet - it's brand new and all I have is the Beta version. Once it gets here, I'll need to make photo copies of the tests and such. But other than that, unless I remember something I forgot to do (if I do, it'll probably be at 4 am) I can move on to other things.

Like painting! I still have paint I bought last year for some projects. But because of my tendon injury I did zero painting last summer. The summer of '08 I painted 3 bedrooms and a hallway with a newborn in the house! But last year, zip, nada, nothing. Hopefully I can remedy that this year.

I've also been stumped as to how to paint our stairwell, which needs it badly. But it's two stories tall, for Pete's sake. (Anyone know who Pete is?) Then I ran across this and even though I am a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to heights, I'm gonna give it a try.

You know what the hardest thing about painting is? That I never want to stop at painting. While I'm at it, I want to put in new light fixtures, and maybe new drapes, which would need new curtain rods. Or maybe the shower curtain needs to be replaced which would require new towels, toothbrush holders, trashcans... This is definitely not a new phenomenon for me, so I know I need to watch it. If you know of any cures, let me know. I'll be the one sitting on the couch watching HGTV.

This is so true!

OK, my husband sent me the funniest Dilbert ever this morning, but I can't figure out a way to post the whole thing in this post - part of it gets cut off. But if you work on computers or know someone who does, click here and get your laugh for the day.

Biking

I am happy to report that I can take back what I said about helping kids learn to ride a bike being in the same category as potty training and phonics. Brynna and Hailey both took off this week. Hailey doesn't need me at all. Brynna, who is our most un-athletic child (is un-athletic a word?), rides just fine. She's still working on the taking off part. And the stopping part still needs some work too, especially when a curb is coming up. She scored our first major crash of the summer this morning by playing chicken with the sidewalk curb. The curb won.

Ketchup

You can always tell when I am super busy, as my blog goes through droughts of posts. And even though it is summer, we have been busy.

We get outside for a little bit each day, either bike riding or to the pool. We are trying to teach the two middle girls to ride without training wheels. I have decided that's up there with potty training and phonics - my least favorite things I do as a parent. But since it would look funny for 12 year olds to ride with training wheels, I guess the middle girls need to learn before they get there. We had to get a couple more bikes too as we didn't even have enough for all the girls. Plus a couple of them had outgrown their bikes. So right after breakfast we go out until the heat drives us inside, roughly 45 minutes.

Then we come inside and deep clean one room of the house. We like it better on days when we clean first and then go to the pool. Instead of spring cleaning we summer clean. We have done the whole house except the kitchen so that's on the agenda for this week. Then I need to wash curtains and clean light fixtures and we are done!

The girls also do math and Latin one day a week. The three older girls are also taking piano lessons, so they practice every day on that too.

After lunch, I spend the afternoon doing lesson plans, running copies, gathering books, and just generally getting prepared for the next school year. I am hoping to complete that in June so I can take July and early August OFF and not even think about school for a while. I'm hoping to get a few rooms and maybe some trim painted during July.

I have also decided that shopping for and signing up for insurance is about my least favorite activity, next to cleaning my shower (uh-oh, I need to do that this week, too). Since Kelly changed jobs, we had to fill out all new health, vision, dental, and life insurance with the new company. At the same time, our homeowners insurance shot up, so I had to shop around and switch our homeowners and car insurance. Plus the new employer didn't offer enough life insurance so we've been shopping around for additional life insurance. Not fun.

We've also had some sick kids - a couple with tummy bugs and one trip to the urgent care clinic because Brynna dropped a griddle on her big toe. We thought it was broken but it is just a deep bruise. Her whole toe nail is navy blue. I told her we needed to get some polish to match and just paint all her toenails that color - people would just think she's being funky. I think it would go fabulously with her red hair.

It's Like Fingernails on a Chalkboard

Last Tuesday evening, Kelly and I were giving Ashlynn and Lauryn a bath when it happened. We've always warned these girls it could happen but so far we had escaped anything really bad. So I guess it's fitting that our last little girl finally bought it. Instead of standing still in the slippery bathtub like we are always telling them to do, she decided to walk around and she slipped.

And hit the side of the tub with her two front teeth.

The sound was AWFUL.

Immediately we could tell her two front teeth were chipped, but at least they were still in her mouth, for now. She was bleeding from somewhere in her mouth, though we couldn't tell exactly where immediately. We finally figured out the gums around one of her front teeth was bleeding and we were afraid she would lose at least that tooth. I was having visions of no front teeth for the next 4-5 years. Of course this is after business hours of our dentist.

The next morning I had to do two things: find a dentist that would see her and find out how to handle our new dental insurance, which had just kicked in the day she fell. Our dentist doesn't see children under the age of five, so they told me to find a pediatric dentist. There's one right down the road from us, but in finding out if they were in our network, we discovered that somehow we still weren't in the dental insurance system.

So Kelly had to go down to HR and work with one of the ladies down there to figure out what the issue was while I took Ashlynn to the new dentist. We just decided to pay up front and file a claim with the insurance company once we got all that settled.

The dentist appointment turned out to be something of an anti-climax. The office was great, very child-friendly and the people were so nice and helpful. They examined her and said she was fine. The teeth might or might not discolor but she probably wouldn't lose them. He didn't even want to file them down. He said just to have her eat soft foods for the next 7 days just to make sure the teeth are traumatized anymore. Fortunately, just as I was about to pay for the visit, Kelly called and said the insurance was worked out. So they ran it again, and the visit was covered 100%.

Fortunately we had no further problems. But she is much more cautious in the bathtub now!

Conversations with a 5 year old, HGTV version

The other day, Lauryn was showing me how she had her doll house set up. She told me:

"See this room? It looks crazy, doesn't it? It needs Design on a Dime."

Conversations with a 5 year old, potty version

Tonight, Hailey bought a little photo album, pink with a latch that velcros shut, kind of like diaries have the latch that locks.

Evidently, Lauryn (5 yo) thought so too. "Hailey," she exclaimed quite excitedly, "it looks like a diarrhea!"

CVS deal

I haven't posted one of my CVS deals lately, so I thought I'd do this. Monday, I went to CVS and got all this (except the toddler, of course)
for $3.44. Plus I had $16 in ECB's (Extra Care Bucks, "dollars" good only at CVS) on the bottom of the receipt.

Everything except the trial sized deodorant was on sale, plus I used a $5 off a $30 CVS coupon that CVS emailed me (you just have to sign up for the emails). Then I used manufacturers coupons either out of the newspaper or printed on the internet and ECB's I had earned from previous trips to CVS. Toilet paper, Kleenex, diapers, shampoo, and deodorant. Good deal!

My boat is bigger than your boat

Last weekend, we went to Odessa to see my family. Next Sunday is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary, so we've been planning for months to get together for the weekend and take them out to eat for their anniversary. We had a little surprise for my mom planned. With my grandmother's permission, we used the topper that was used at my grandparents' 40th anniversary party (in 1983) on the cake.

This cake was my youngest sister's creation. The top cake was spice cake, the middle cake was white cake, and the bottom was chocolate. You'd think we were feeding the whole city of Odessa instead of our family and a couple of friends.

My parents.

This is what my mom got my dad. It's to decorate his office at work.

My dad had a surprise for my mom that blows our little bit of nostalgia off the planet. You see for weeks, he and my mom have been "planning" on going back to Arkansas where they spent their honeymoon. What my mom didn't know was that my dad had no intention of going back to Arkansas. He'd received a bonus from work a couple months back and wanted to use it go to on a really great trip, something they hadn't done before.

So he decided to book them on an Alaskan cruise. He bought the tickets, arranged for airfare, made hotel reservations the day before the cruise ALL WITHOUT TELLING MY MOM. My sisters and I knew and he wanted us to be in on telling her. His idea was to play a version of Let's Make a Deal. We got little gifts that would be for the cruise - like binoculars - that she would "earn" by answering questions about their married life. By answering more questions she could trade in for bigger prizes.
Finally she got to pick one of three boxes. One had a trip to No Trees, Texas (yes it really does exist). Box 2 was a description of the Arkansas trip.
She picked that one at first and then, after one last question, was able to choose box number 3. Here's Sarah showing her the actually cruise ship they will be on.

My mom was so surprised. She had NO IDEA. First she laughed.

Then she cried.

Then I teased her about how much bigger the boat Daddy gave her is than the one she gave him.