How time flies....

 

I can't believe that it's been 8 years. Today, in 2002 I married my best friend. We had been together 6 years at this point and had 4 children together. I am not sure what kept us from marrying sooner, we both came from broken homes. My mother had been remarried 3 times, the third lasting 18 years (and is currently on her fourth YIKES!). His mother was only married once but it ended very badly. We both had the fear of "what if" looming over our heads along with horrible previous relationships. It took a very kind and wonderful pastor to encourage us to take the leap and walk us through the counseling and the marriage process, thank you Pastor Troester! What a beautiful ride the past 14 years have been and here's to another 50 or so more.

Cha-cha-cha-changes!

Oh where to begin? There has been so much going on in the past month or so. Toby, Paige, Haley & I all got a little older.

 Toby and Paige's birthdays fall on the same day however we celebrated them both on different days this year. Sort of giving Toby back his birthday.

I have trained my kids to tell anyone that asks that (depending on the child) I am anywhere between 21 and 25 years old. Gotta love their innocence lol!

 Haley turned 17, SEVENTEEN! How did she grow up and get so old before my eyes?

I got a little smarter, I finally became a college graduate. There were times when I didn't think I would make it. At one point I was pregnant, working full time, helping Toby with his business taxes and paper work part time, and tending to a very sick toddler who was hospitalized, all while taking between 3 and 5 classes. I very nearly quit and am so glad I didn't. 

Jonas turned 8 months old, and is starting to hit all of those lovely milestones most babies his age have already mastered. With his adjusted age he is right on track but since he is so big and is often larger than most babies his actual age it is hard for others to comprehend why he isn't, or rather wasn't doing normal stuff. I am happy to say that he now is rolling and scooting all over the place and starting to enjoy finding and getting into things that he should not be playing with. Although he is not crawling yet, he is getting up on all fours and trying. And, just two days ago he surprised us all be pulling up into a standing position out of no where. I often sit and look at him in wonderment as at 23lbs and 30in he looks more like a toddler than an infant.

 Loryn played the last of her 14 games of volleyball. She did so well, I am very proud of all that she achieved. This was her first year playing and she not only learned the sport but did well enough to be put on the B team (her school has an A, B & C team).

There was so much more that went on but will add those events in on another post. Such a fun and crazy life and I am loving every minute of it!

Wordless Wednesday - Double birthdays.

More Wordless Wednesdays:

Wordless Wednesday HQ │ 7 Clown Circus │ 5 Minutes For Mom │ MomDot

Tackle it Tuesday - Found it!

So I had two goals today, the first was to go through the tub of baby clothes that we had from Jake and organize it so that I had all the newborn - 9m out and put away. The second was to tackle the storage room again to find that dang preemie outfit that Toby organized lost.

I actually did it all and then some! I started with the tub since that was the least amount of work, I had already had that hauled upstairs and it was sitting in my room. I dug out all the 0-9m clothes as well as some 12m clothes. Then I went and cleared out some drawers in my dresser to put them away. Since I had those, I went through what I had bought as well to decide what to bring to the hospital. This led to me picking out the pjs that I was taking to the hospital. So I also got my bag 3/4 packed and a list together of what else needs to be tossed in when the time comes!

(Hard to believe that Jake fit into this!)

Then I moved down stairs turns out this time I started on the right side of the closet. After going through three other bins I found it on the fourth one. I am so excited to finally have it, I thought for sure that it wouldn't be found until the baby long out grew it. Once it gets out of the wash it will be packed in the bag as well.

Now we have the space in the room cleared and waiting for the baby gear to get here to set up then the baby can show up anytime after that.

What's in a name?

So as you all may know we are still nameless here. It's not that we are totally without name options, we simply do not agree. I am stuck on the name Jonas while Toby is constantly thinking of names and likes a few such as Brody and the latest names to the list Tobias and Jarret. He thinks that Jonas will have issues with being referred the the pop group The Jonas Brothers, I say that they wont even be remembered when Jonas gets to school (yes did you notice that? We've been calling the baby Jonas almost from finding out we were expecting). He thinks Tobias would be good but if we were going to do a Jr, or Jr like name it really should have been done w/Jacob, not with the second boy. He thinks that Jarret is a good strong name, all I can think of is it reminds me of the weight loss phenom from Subway. I know it's not EXACTLY the same name, but close enough! Brody is an ok name it's actually the name Toby and I agreed on for Jake before he changed his mind minutes before I started pushing, but if we do use it then we wont use MY name at all. No way can we have another child with weird initials BJS would not be good, we already have a PMS, why, you ask? Because Toby had to have Paige as a first name instead of the name I picked-Madison. See a trend? I sure do!

So here I sit with a baby name book trying to find a name. I am currently 33 weeks pregnant, for the average person that would leave PLENTY of time to find a name but for me it means I could go into labor at any time. My last two were born at 34 weeks 2 days and 34 weeks exactly, the two before that were 37 and 36 weeks.

I am looking through the book and see all of these really great boy GIRL names in the boy section. Really was Abby ever a boy name? I know Alexis, Loren, Jordon and Leslie were actually boy names before they were picked up as girl names, but Kalyn, Kali and Ashley?

Conversation between Jake & Toby

As you read this, keep in mind that Jake knows all the Jonas Brother's names but Toby does not, nor does he like them....

Jake: What will the baby's name be?
Toby: Mom likes Jonas.
Jake: What about Nick? Nick Jonas would be good?
Toby: Nick is a good name but I like Joesph. Joesph Jonas would be ok, we could call him JJ.
Jake: Or Joe, he could be Joe Jonas.
Toby: No, I don't like Joe as a name.
Jake: Kevin is a good name. Kevin Jonas, does that sound good?
Toby: Kevin is a good name but we have a lot of K's already, we could call him KJ though. Kevin would be alright.

As you can imagine I am turning red/purple and fighting back the laughter at this point. Toby is convinced that if we name the baby Jonas (which I have like long before anyone even knew who or what a Jonas Brother was) he will be teased because of the Jonas Brothers. Then as he and Jake are talking they went through not one, not two but all three of the famous Jonas Brother's names! After they were done I informed him of such and we had a great laugh about it. He must have thought I was nuts sitting there nearly in tears from holding back my laughter.

As you can tell the name debate is still going strong at our house. I can in all certainty tell you that Nicholas (Nick), Joesph and Kevin were all X'd off of the list though ;).

Whole day is off!

So I took yesterday off to take Kira and Kaly to the dr and to stay with them since they were both sick. I make far less than Toby does in a day so it just makes sense for me to be the one at home with them. Plus Toby at a dr's office? LOL the thought alone makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe! Any way so here I am on my lunch break at work trying to reschedule all the apts that I had scheduled today (my normal day off) and I am so lost! Today feels like either a Monday or a Wednesday not a Tuesday. I actually tried to correct a lady that it was a different day when trying to reschedule :), sorry! She didn't really find the humor in it like I did while explaining-or rather trying to explain to her why I was off.

Kaly is doing much better, I wish the doctor would have given her this medicine last week. I am a little upset that she had to suffer like that before they would do anything different. Kira still looks horrible but was laughing and playing as I left today. Toby would have stayed with her, but Haley was running a fever and thought she could handle Kira. I wonder if I sat down and figured out the amount of money that I pay in unused daycare and medicine from all of Kira's illnesses with doctor copays and such how much I really make working? It can't be much, especially if you add on the gas I spend to travel all the way out to my job, the money I spend on lunch/snacks because I am always running late and can't pack things.

I suppose we will just make it until I either deliver or am pulled out of work and go from there. My guess is I will be staying at home for at least a year after this little guy shows up..........but you never know!

FAIL!

Ok, after I posted that I actually made my way down to the storage room and battled the boxes to locate not only the tree but the decorations tub as well. I pulled them out and set them near the stairs to be carried up by my oldest or hubby whom ever I could wrangle to get it brought up first. Then I got sidetracked looking for a specific outfit that Jake had worn that I wanted his baby brother to wear.

The next two hours were spent with me elbow deep in tubs and boxes looking for an outfit that I knew was there a few months back but has now since disappeared. I blame my husband. After I had last set eyes on the outfit I had put it back into the tub I got it out of (the kids at this point didn't know we were expecting) and then Toby wanted to shuffle rooms around and mixed up all of my tubs! Who does that? I mean all you have to do is carry the box/tub from one room to the other. How hard is that? Apparently for my guy it's pretty hard because he thought that some tubs didn't have enough in them so he MIXED them! I had them that way for a dang reason! So now the gorgeous preemie outfit that my #1 son wore home from the hospital will not be worn home by #2 son unless it miraculously turns up between now and Feb. With my luck I will find it 5.6 seconds AFTER we bring son #2 home from the hospital @@.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Ok, so it has been a LOOOOONG time. Let's see first things first, Coco Keys did finally come good on the refunds. They gave me $85 at first, then after more calls, more complaining and a call to the management company they not only refunded me the other $40 but the origonal money we actually did spend as well. I am still sour on the whole deal and don't think that I should have had to wait three plus weeks to get the double billing resolved but they did come good by giving me all the money back.

The 20th was Toby and Paige's birthday. Paige turned 8 and Toby 38. Paige got a few ds games, some clothes, a few toys and $, Toby finally got his PS3. He thinks it was because he deserved it, really it was because I wanted to watch blueray movies ;).


Work is going good, we are almost done in training which means I will have to give my Blackberry Storm back. Kinda sad about that as it means no email at work :( sad pandas! Sept. 15 will be our first day on the floor and my schedule will change to noon to nine. Another BOO moment but at least I can get stuff done in the mornings w/o missing work and perhaps sleep in a bit lol (yeah right!).

School is going well, I forgot a test in two of my classes and am having to get all A's on everything to bring my grade up. Sucky but I'll get it back and end w/a B ::fingers crossed::. I have three classes next semester, one of which will be on campus-speech. Blech! I am not looking fwd to either going on campus or standing in front of a group of people. It's not that I can't do it, it's that when I do it my face instantly turns and I get all hot. I think I will have to do two or three 10 minute speeches. Seeing how classes are not even close to starting and I am already having anxiety over it, should be good times!

Thousand Words Thursday - 4

Kali was letting me know that she was done taking pictures.
She gets it from her dad.
For more Thousand Words Thursday click on the logo above.

Father's Day.

The kids really have enjoyed spending some time with their dad these past few days. I didn't have the camera out much to take pix of it all but I did want to share some of the fun stuff that they made him for Father's Day.

We'll start with KaliShe actually made this last year at school before it let out. She hid it in her room so Toby wouldn't find it before Father's Day and LOST it. She was grounded recently and had to clean out her entire room and go through toy bins etc and found it.

Jake not being in school or preschool wanted to do something like his sisters so we grabbed some of the art projects that we had laying around and put a Toby head on it. It cracks me up Gorilla Dad rocks!

Paige made Toby two things, one in school that is identical to Kaly's (they are only one grade apart so this must be the standard 2nd grade project). Seeing that Kal and her had similar ones she decided to do something different and created the picture below.
I LOVE it! Her dad is A-some! I know she meant awesome but A-some is so funny, kind of like A-hat. Toby and I were in a bit of a fight when she gave it to him and it brought a HUGE smile to my face.

Forever the jokester like her mom Loryn put together this little card. She really tries to push the limits, but I can't help it, it really is a funny card!

Haley made a card as well but it wasn't around when I took these pictures, it did go something like "Hope you like this card, because it's all I got you!" LOL I wonder if she will think a card like that is as funny when she gets her's from Toby on her 16th birthday!!

I hope you all had an A-some F-day!

#2 = long week!

No Wordless Wednesday today. Kira went to the dr Monday and we found out she has another ear infection. It was one heck of a weekend and she is supposed to be doing better tomorrow. Oh man I hope so. She has been so fussy and irritable, doesn't want to be set down and fights going to sleep and eating. I guess it hurts to lay down? On top of that she has a cold, congestion, runny nose, cough and sneezing. Paige had a fever, runny nose and tons of sneezing and must have passed it on to Kira. The odd thing is she doesn't show a fever, I would swear by touching her that she had a fever and her cheeks get all red but I take her temp and it's always between 98.5 and 99.3, I've even tried different thermomaters and the dr's show the same. I hope the medicine kicks in and she does better tomorrow, I have a lot to do/cook.

Looks like it will be just us again this year, Toby's family has yet to call us to tell us if there is a family gathering. They do this every year, except usually they call Tuesday AFTER I have bought an entire Thanksgiving meal to tell us that the dinner is at so-and-so's house. No call this year though. Toby's Uncle was in town so maybe the decided to have it early and just didn't bother to invite us-wouldn't surprise me one bit. Heck Kali's birthday was the 8th and grandma hasn't been out to see her yet @@. I so regret moving from my family but I know even without his family living here is far better than where we were.

PITA!

We have been waiting for over two months for this stupid ass builder to pay us the money that Toby has been doing work for. We have invoiced him and have waited and called and tried to get paid. Today Toby finally put his foot down and told him that he needed to pay us or get someone else out to finish his 3 houses that are about to close. This got his attention and he meets with Toby and gives him a folder stating that WE owe him 10 grand instead of him owing US the 14 grand that he does! I am sitting here looking at this Excel spreadsheet and I am not kidding you this guy litterally MADE UP his own amounts. NONE of his amounts match up to what we invoiced him for. The amounts when broken down aren't even the price per piece that Toby does, the square footage is off (thank God Toby kept all the floor plans!), this guy is either nuts or a freaking MORON! I can not believe this jerk is trying to pull this crap. The worst part is all of these houses are already closed on so we can't even put a builder's lean on the home and get paid at closing :(. We are going to have to take him to court, I just have a feeling that it is going to go to that.

On a much better note Kali got her hair cut yesterday. It is much shorter than I would have gone and I totally did not want the bang on it but she did. It looks alright but she has some funky thing w/her hair on one side of her bangs so it gives the appearance of her bangs being uneven. Drives me nuts. I will post a picture that we took later as for some reason it wont load right now.

Birthday girl and boy.

Blowing out the candles.
Somewhere in there is Miss Paigey going through her loot.
My birthday girl and boy.

I just noticed that I still have not fixed the date on the camera @@! Paige has her friend party this Friday. She invited three girls from school and her cousin Mackenzy to sleep over. Should be fun LOL

Lotus Toby

LMAO this is just too funny!