New to Us

Well, after much craziness (the car wouldn't start when Perry went to pick it up Tuesday night, didn't get to our house until he came home from work Wednesday night, and then wouldn't start on Friday-his key wasn't "talking" to the engine), this is our new car. I really love it. It's a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan.

Easter 2008

9:00 church doesn't jive too well with the Easter Bunny and pre-church pictures. We usually do the Bunny on Saturday, to help with the focus of the meaning of Easter and help with the craziness of getting ready for church. Luckily, we made it all through church without too much damage to the looks.

December Recital

Mischa's piano recital in December, by popular request.

This is the second dress I've made for her. She started piano at the end of last July and has really picked it up.

Growing Up

I just realized today that Liesie hasn't asked for "mama milk" in a week or so. For about a month I've been able to distract her with breakfast when I'm on the computer, but she was asking. I guess my little girl isn't so little anymore. Now to work on celebrating the end of diapers. THAT won't make me so sad, lol.

All Good Things Must End or Out with a Bang

20 years, 9 months. That's my perfect driving record. Or was my perfect driving record. I guess subconciously I wasn't satisfied with the presents I had picked up for Perry's birthday on Saturday.

I was pulling out of a shopping center about a mile away from the house, turning left. The lane closest to me was backed up, and the lady about to block the entry way waved me in front of her. I didn't see the pickup truck coming in the next lane over. Thankfully I was going slow and even though he wasn't, he saw me and swerved, so there wasn't much damage to the cars (I at least punctured the antifreeze tank and knocked out my headlight completely). I freaked at first because all I saw at the time of impact was glass going everywhere. Turns out this guy is from a glass shop on his way to an installation. Now we have the fun of deciding what to do with our 11 year old car. Ugh.

Josh loved that the policeman gave him a badge, and he and Anneliese loved running around the shopping center for the hour and a half we were there.

Liesie was really cute when we got home, though. I started crying on the way home and she deemed my eyes sick (she is just getting over pinkeye right now, so she's an expert) and insisted I go to bed. I told her I would once I had some lunch and the box of Girl Scout cookies sitting in the fridge (yay booth sale yesterday), but she grabbed my finger and marched me right up. I came down after a minute and when she discovered me, insisted I go back up. I sat at the top of the stairs so Perry and I could talk, and she kissed all over my face. As demonic as her little going-on-3 self can be at times, she sure can be an angel.

I'm thankful no one was hurt, and the guy I hit was really nice, but I had quite the busy week this week, and having this bop around the back of my head for the next little bit isn't going to help.

Oh well. Happy Birthday Honey!

As an aside, as I was waiting for my lunch to heat up, I remembered that we were almost out of gel and allergy medicine, so I wrote those really quick on the shopping list. Perry took the pen out of my hand and added 'car'. Gotta love him!

Happy St. Perry's Day

And a happy birthday to my wonderful husband! You have been such a rock to me and I couldn't imagine going through life without you. I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you are. I love you so much!!!!!!

Cake Mania

Here are my latest three cakes that I have worked on over this last weekend. I haven't done a cake since the Pinewood Derby, and then I get these three for one weekend. The first one was due on Friday, and the other two were for Tuesday, but my grandmother passed away Friday morning and the last two had to be done by the time I left Monday morning. It was quite hectic around here last weekend.


This one was for a first birthday- the small one is the smash cake.

This one was for MOPS- we were having different birthday themes and our table was either sex. I forgot the toasted coconut that was to be sprinkled on the ground.

This was for the husband of my Brownie co-leader. He turned 47.

Stop the Drama

The past two days have been just one thing after another. Caleb is on some new medication and the last prescriptions we got were written by his child psychiatrist, who is out of network. He ran out of his medication so I dropped it off at the pharmacy to be filled before heading out to the park. I got home with a message from the pharmacy- the 2nd medication was on backorder. Perry goes to pick up the first and they haven't even filled it, since they thought I meant that he would be picking up the paper prescription (both medicines were on one sheet) when I meant the pills themselves. They say they can fill the one but that we would have to get another prescription for the second. He finds out that another pharmacy nearby has the 2nd one so he goes there. They inform him that since the prescribing doctor is out of network, we would have to pay full price for both (only one is available as a generic). I tell Perry to come home since it's after 7 (he had been at this since 6:15) and I would call Caleb's doctor in the morning. I call this morning to have the doctor write the prescriptions, which I arranged to pick up from her office. I got a call about 30 minutes later- his doctor is out for the day and the other doctors usually don't write prescriptions for ADHD patients that they don't see. They found one doctor he had seen before to write one for him. I went to the store to get some stuff after this conversation and get the mail. Our dentist is moving about an hour's drive away. I already had it on my plate to find an optometrist to check Mischa, a doctor for me for migraine meds, and now I have to find a new dentist. Of course, Caleb and Mischa have an appointment on March 8th, so now I'm sure that will be pushed back quite a bit. I don't think there is enough chocolate in the world at this point.

Chocolate Snob

I think Anneliese has made Valentine's Day her favourite holiday. Caleb came home with a bunch of chocolate candy that he won't eat, so she's been chowing on it all day. She came to me with a heart to unwrap and it turned out to be one of those crispy rice kinds. She took one bite and said, "Mommy, not good". No more bites for her. A little while later she found me and had unwrapped a plain chocolate heart. It had one bite taken out of it. She showed it to me and proclaimed it "perfect" before shoving the rest of it in her mouth.

Pinewood Derby 2008

We had our Pinewood Derby a few weeks ago. Pictured with Caleb, Mischa, and a Flat Stacy visiting from a Brownie Troop in Michigan (last year we had a Flat Stanley) is the Fat-tailed Gecko. Caleb came in 5-5, which is what he did last year. He missed coming in fourth by less than an inch. He won best paint job, which was funny because the car isn't painted at all, it's a skin.


After the race we enjoyed all sorts of fun racing treats, including this cake that I made:

No Words, Really, No Words

Snow

Mischa has been wishing for snow since Thanksgiving. I think if someone told her if she gave up all of her Christmas presents it would snow, she would've done it. A few weeks ago, she lost a tooth

and asked the Tooth Fairy for an extra $10 since she had been so good that year. The TF told her that $10 in quarters was WAY too heavy to carry, but she left some snowflake pencil erasers for good luck in her wish for snow. And a few days later....

they all ran outside at the first few snowflakes to catch them on their tongues. It took awhile, but it eventually turned into this

New Diet

Way back when, I gave myself two weight loss goals. They're only 5 pounds apart, but those last 5 pounds always seem to be the killer. I haven't been doing much to work on it recently, and have verrrrrrry slowly crept down the scale. Then I found my new weight loss miracle. 3 pounds in a week, in my sleep, with no hunger. The only downside is that it's called the flu and even though I'm physically feeling better after a week of sleeping, I think my diet will be continuing. Apparently my sinuses haven't gotten the message that I'm better now and have decided to block all sense of taste for me. In desperation yesterday, I went through the fridge trying to find something that I could eat. I opened the salsa and could faintly smell it. Excited, I told Perry to get some lime flavoured tortilla chips, figuring the salty chips would help. They taste like cardboard. I got a hamburger and fries for lunch today, thinking the mustard and salt would help. Nothing. I haven't had a Dr. Pepper for a week. Water takes on some weird cough medicine taste, so that's no help, either. I bought some Squirt, so I hope that'll help somehow. The last few times I had this happen to me was during a few of my pregnancies- both times it lasted several weeks.
Nope, the Squirt didn't work- tastes like flat diet soda. I am so bummed.

Happiness is...

Being able to use a new blog design for more than two weeks! Thanks for the design Matie Kay!

Edited to add that I'm really happy how fast it comes up, too. Guess DIY blog design isn't my thing.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Not really, but I thought I would share this idea now while I remembered it, lol. Mischa's Sunday School teacher made these Advent Candles for her class this year. She just used puffy paint to decorate it. It has a paper with a scripture a day that highlights an attribute of Christ. Of course, it will probably be next Christmas before I can find the paper...

Yellow Belt

Caleb moved up to the next class in Karate and got his yellow belt.

Why yes, I do need to be involved somehow whenever the camera is out!

Santa

These are the kids' pictures with Santa this year (or last year, as Caleb just now pointed out to me).

Anneliese went last and even then she wasn't too sure about him, but he got up and came to her

Joshua has always been afraid of Santa. Even at the ward Christmas party this year, he wanted nothing to do with him. Last year we came to this Santa and Joshua didn't want to sit on his lap at all, but as we turned to go out, he changed his mind. This year, he was the one who asked if we could come to the "Santa with the lights".

All I want for Christmas is a pink homework organizer. Really. And I've drawn a picture of it. It's quite simple, really. Little drawers in cubbies with roll down covers. All the elves were able to come up with on such short notice were a Dora storage cube with 3 drawers.

All I want for Christmas is my other front tooth to finally start growing in (his other tooth had just started to finally grow in after about 6 months!) and Transformers.

Just a little of why he's the "Santa with the lights". You could probably see his house from an airplane. Every square inch of his house is decorated. His bedroom is all Nativity sets and the front room is a huge train village with a waterfall. It's really cool. I'm glad Santa has a North Georgia home.

Christmas in Bethlehem

One of the churches in nearby Canton does a recreation of Bethlehem every Christmas. Everyone is in character, and they really go out of their way to make it as real as possible. Real food to sample, real fish in the fish market, younger kids harass the Roman soldiers. It's really neat.

The city is lit only by firelight.

This is the closest you're getting to my money tonight!

This little guy was only 4 months old.

Llama llove

Pretty necklace

This little guy was only a few days old

Snow Angels

This is the cake I made for our ward Christmas party. I love Halloween and Christmas parties- they seem to have the really fun cakes.

Back to the Real World

Six o'clock comes too early around here. Especially when your husband greets you with a "welcome back to the real world" comment. He's lucky my aim is lousy that early in the morning.

School started today, after two weeks off. Not that I got too many days to sleep in, though. Something about kids going to bed fairly close to their bedtimes (me, way past) and having fun toys to wake up to had me not sleeping in all that often. Then church started at 9, so I'm down to sleeping in once a week, which is turning into a very busy day for us, so I don't think I'll be seeing any good sleeping in until summer. I guess I could go to bed earlier, but that would be too easy.

We had a great Christmas. My mom came over from Phoenix and I think she was glad to get to my sister's house and sleep in a little after her visit here.

I have a ton of start of the year stuff to get to today, so I don't have time to blog about it right now, just wanted people to know we were still alive.