Hello, I'm crazy.

I am the kind of woman who LIKES to clean. Organizing is my forte, I adore it, I would seriously be a professional organizer if I knew how to go about doing that. That being said, I am so ridiculously, crazy excited about cleaning my cupboards out as much as possible before we move. I do this every now and then anyways (cook all things that involve what I've already got in the pantry) but this is going to be EXTREME and I am just the kind of crazy girl to enjoy it!

Bring on the stress!

Provided nothing goes wrong with our loan or inspections (and I'm not expecting them to) we will soon be the proud, first time home owners, of this beauty:

I could absolutely not have foreseen our first home buying experience going any better. Yes, I don't care for the prominent garage that is so popular around here, but it's got our four bedrooms, a big bonus, double garage, decent yard, Holly Springs location, and the price was great.
The stress is going to be unbelievable! Our foreseen closing will be in the beginning of June...and in the second week of June we're leaving on our NH and CT vacation. STRESS!

Could this home buying thing finally fall into place!?!?!

Jeremy and I have been trying for over a year now to buy a home. Our credit is not great. In fact, mine TANKED when Avery was a baby because things just were NOT going our way and we had to rely on credit cards quite a bit. Anyways, things weren't looking good on the home front either. We were looking at HUD homes because we didn't have down payment money saved up, didn't qualify USDA, and wanted that stimulus payment. HUD house searching is hard...people tear these houses up badly because they're so mad that they've lost the home. We found our DREAM first-home on Sunday. Everything about it is what we need. 2,000 suare feet, Holly Springs location, four bedrooms and a bonus, great neighborhood with a community pool, decent yard (thought it does need work)...it's PERFECT! We bid low on Sunday night (the house has been sitting for a while so we figured we might as well start realllllly low) and the bid got rejected. Tonight we've upped the anti a little bit..and we will continue to do so until our bid is accepted. Now we just need to keep our fingers tightly crossed that nobody else jumps in with a bid before we get ours high enough to be accepted/that our loan goes through without any problems. This is killing me!!!

Thang goodness for Spring energy!

I LOVELOVELOVE my newfound energy since spring has begun. The sun is apparently my everything, and now that it's finally out until later in the evening, I'm finally able to be more of the Mommy that I like to/want to be. In the winter everything is so blah. I get home and the darkness makes me feel like all I have time to do is make dinner and go to bed. Now I feel like I just want to keep moving!
Tonight, after he played with the neighbors of course, Avery and I had some Mommy son bonding time. We made brownies, liked the bowl and spoon clean, and settled in to a movie. Just us. <3 I love this boy!!

The Perfect Summer Day :o)

I don't typically get all sappy like this but, really, today was a PERFECT day! My kids let me sleep in until 8 (always a nice suprise) and then, after a quick breakfast, we headed out to Parrish Womble Park in Holly Springs.



We stayed there for about two hours. Caitlin has GOT to start walking though! She wants so badly to be on the big kid play structures. I did assist her in climbing up for a ride down the big slide a few times, but mostly she just played on the swings. Avery spent a lot of time on the swings also. They unfortunately don't have regular swings there so he looked like his dorky self on the baby swings.



Note the purple Disney princess necklace Avery has on? It's been a long time since he's decided he wanted to do girly stuff. It was so cute when he used to want his toenails to be painted all of the time. It kind of brought me back to those days. Honestly, by the way, I don't understand at all the parents who go CRAZY on their sons overthings like playing with dolls or nailpolish or whatever. Avery figured it out on his own that he was a boy and boys didn't typically wear nailpolish...and in the meantime he wore it for over a year. He carried a doll around the ENTIRE time I was pregnant. Leave your kids alone and let them be creative and explore.

Anyways, next we came home for lunch and then Caitlin went down for a nap and Avery went to spend time at one of our neighbors house. During my free time I was able to book as a room at the Ramada Mystic in Mystic, CT. I am SOOO beyond excited!!! Every year we spend our entire summer vacation time visiting my family in New Hampshire. This will be the first year that we actually take some time out for a REAL vacation. On the way home from NH we will be stopping in Mystic for a two night stay. We will spend day one at the Mystic Aquarium (which kicks the butt of all of the aquariums we have around us now) loving on some beluga whales, penguins, and (my favorite) sea lions <3.



Then we're spending the next day in Misquamicut, RI

and the day after that at Ocean Beach Park in New London, CT.




Anyways, a little later on Avery and I woke Caitlin up from her nap so we could go buy a sprinkler at Walmart. Avery *almost* went wearing one of those ridiculous, full-body bathing suits with the floatation device built in. And, of course, the princess necklace. I talked him out of that one. Not because he would have looked foolish...but because he would have complained about being uncomfortable the second we walked in. I really don't care what he wears and I'm all about his self-expression. Hell, he wore this to school one day last year...




We then enjoyed the sprinkler and a watergun fight with all of our neighbors. After which, Caitlin again decided to nap and Avery went to another neighbors house,...giving me the house all to myself to cook an amazingly yummy dinner, courtesy of this months issue of Taste of Home magazine.

We're about to get the kids into their beautifully tinted bathtub and then chill with a movie.

<3 I need more days like this in my life.

Thanks a lot blogspot! a;lkdjvhp28

On a whim I decided I'd browse through random blogs in hopes of finding a new one to follow. So I go to my blog and hit the "go to next blog" tab...the FIRST blog that came up had a picture of a ginormous dildo. Not only did Avery see it right away, but he asked what it was, AND the window took forever and a day to close after I hit the x. Lesson learned!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from my two seriously dorky children!!!

"My mommy has two tattoos"

Every so often a little tidbit of information comes up about one of the kid's parents...this is one of the best.

We were reading a book in class called "Bonzini, the Tattooed Man". It's by the same author as the Ms Nelson is Missing books. Anyways, it's all about the circus tattooed man getting lost in some small town and telling the kids stories about his tattoos. So, I ask the kids if any of their parents have tattoos and one of the girls pipes up with "My mommy has two tattoos. One on her back and one on her cha cha." I'm pretty sure I know what her cha cha is right away but I decide to clarify anyways, just in case I'm wrong. Nope, I'm right. It's described as "You know. The place where pee comes out from." Ok, I'm intrigued. "What is her tattoo of?", I ask. The answer...."Bushes." I paused for a minute because I was really thinking that maybe this little girl was cunfused and thought that her mom's hair was drawn on or something. But no...she further explains that Mommy has a tattoo of green bushes on her cha-cha.
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Soooo classy! hahaha

Work has gotten a tad uncomfortable recently!

There is a new girl in our class and her step-father is the King of all Creeps. He has winked at all three of my classroom's teachers multiple times, he thought it was ok to tell one of them that they looked good in shorts, and then yesterday I had this conversation with him:

King Creep: "Are you alright? You look like you been crying."
Me: "Oh I'm fine. I just got back from the gym so I'm all hot and red."
King Creep: "Oh, I know you hot."
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King Creep: "[name deleted to protect the innocent] say goodbye to your beautiful teacher. [looks at me] You looking really...nice *wink*"
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Hellloooooo inappropriate!

Weight Loss Restart...will restart tomorrow

I told myself that after Easter I'd really get back into it. So, here it is in writing so that I can't cheat myself. Granted, I did lose another 4 lbs last month (total thus far is 13 lbs) but I didn't really even try. I'm sure the number could have been much higher. So starting tomorrow, calorie counting, healthier eating, gym and the Insanity workout video program. Summer is here and I don't have long before that bathing suit has to come out of retirement!

Happy Easter Everyone!

The real eggs are boiled and cooling off in the refridgerator, the plastic eggs are stuffed awaiting tonights egg hunt (THE most awesome Easter tradition with our neighbors...kids with flashlights hunting eggs down in the late evening). I'm a tad sad because I realllly wanted to get the kids kittens for Easter and Jeremy turned it down with a quickness. Well, he said we could get kittens IF he could get a ferret...and I'd rather just be petless than have one of those nasty things in my house. I hope you all enjoy the holiday!!

Prayers for Baby Jonas

I saw one of my neighbors for the first times in MONTHS yesterday afternoon and when I ask her how she's been she hits me with

"Welll...we have a new baby."

I had ZERO idea that she was pregnant! Turns out I haven't seen her in months because her pregnancy was going so poorly. The poor thing has been completely house ridden and didn't tell anyone she was pregnant because she was positive that things were going to end badly. Little Jonas arrived 10.5 weeks early and is currently at Duke Hospital. It would seem as everything is oing very well considering. He has had his lung treatments ad everything is going well there. Now he is going through an intensive medicine regimen to help close a valve in his heart that doesn't usually close until later in he pregnancy. I'm so happy for them and so impressed by how strong the family seems to be doing throughout all of this. I know that it would tear me up to not be able to be with my newborn and my heart goest out to them.

The Greatest Big Brother Ever

Last night Avery spent about half an hour in the kitchen helping Caitlin learn to walk. She was standing up and holding onto a chair and he was pulling the chair slowly in front of her so that she would walk across the kitchen floor. Aww *tear*

Some Daycare Truths

Some daycare truths from a daycare employee (Some because people have rubbed the the wrong way in the past few days and some just because they're sort of funny and fit with the theme).

I work in a preschool...and I'm not stupid. That's right folks. This girl right here. NOT stupid. haha I can't even begin to count the amount of times that I've been spoken to like people were thinking "Oh, that poor thing. She's so dumb that she has to work at a preschool."
Hi. I'm Melissa. I have a Bachelor's degree in United States History and an Associate's degree in English. I am certified to teach middle/high school in NH and NC. I work in a preschool, but I'm quite confident that, with the proper training, I could do your job. And, I 100% maintain that...
I work in a preschool because I am a GENIUS!
I get ridiculously discounted prices on care for my own children. As in, $16,000 dollars a year worth of free childcare (doesn't that make those of you who are paying full price want to die a little inside?). Here's the other kicker...while you're stressing out at work about things that you can't make work, deadlines that you aren't going to meet, etc. etc. I'm singing songs, playing with paper mache and, occassionally, throwing stuff at your kids (dodgeball people! haha). I am ENJOYING myself and getting paid for it. It's really quite genius decision making on my part.

That being said, I understand why some of these people thing we're dumb because...well...I work with some real morons. A joke was made today about how a child's teacher had written on their artwork that it was a "Pinguine" (Hi Katherine! haha). That's supposed to say penguin people. But, I can one up it. Once upon a time, while typing lesson plans for other classrooms, I came across and entry for "Go on a pride". Go on a pride? hrm? I thought to myself, "What does this month's theme have to do with a bunch of lions?" I had to ask the teacher. "Go on a pride" was meant as "Go on a parade". Pride. Parade. Seriously people?

Also, I may not be stupid, but
I do not have the answer to all of your parenting woes!
My four-year-old son still poops in his pull-up almost every night, the only vegetable he'll eat is baby carrots, he's ridiculously shy and screams at people to "not look at him" constantly,he can't recognize letter shapes, and, occassionally, I feel like it's necessary for me to tear the heck out of his behind because he just doesn't know how to act. My 14-month-old daughter, though admittedly a bit of an angel child, will NOT stand up on her own. I don't have the answers! The only answer I have is this one...You can't change your child's personality. They get it in their own time and the answers that work for one person will simply not work for you.

And now for the funny ones....
1. Please, don't tell me that your three and a half year old is reading. Chapter books even! Wow, see, I'm with her 40 hours a week and I'm impressed when she gets her own name right. I tell her EVERY DAY to pour her water in the sink and she stares at me like a deer caught in the headlights and pours it into the trash can. Even the other three year olds realize that she's a tad slow. She can not read!

2. If I told you something about your child and you answered "Is that normal?" the obvious answer is that I wouldn't have wasted my breath telling you about it if it was normal. Duh.

3. It is NOT cute that your three year old daughter is dancing like a stripper and singing about Birthday Sex. Not cute at all. And, to be perfectly honest, all it does is make me wonder a) wtf she see's you doing at home and b) what kind of parent lets their child listen to such inappropriate music.

4. "I could never listen to kids all day." I hear this a lot. That I'm like super woman because I can put up with twenty three-year-old children all day. Here's the simple answer, dealing with 20 of your kids is 5 trillion times easier than dealing with mine! Reason being, crying to get your way only works on a Mommy. I can only listen to my kids cry for so long before I give in to them. It breaks my heart. I can listen to your kids cry allllll day. I don't enjoy it, but I can do it. Mommy's break, teachers make it known that no amount of tantrum is going to win the battle. I'm the teacher, what I say goes. Period.

5. Your kids make penises during art time. Never on purpose of course. I'm not that twisted. However, they do often make things that are undeniably penises. I have the pictures to prove it (and one of these days I'll actually upload them).

I could go on forever....