Happy Monday

well it WAS Happy anyways....I got only as far as putting the title in and my dad popped up on my im to tell me that my mom's cousin passed away yesterday from what they think was a heart attack. I'm not sure of his exact age but he was in his late 40's early 50's. Wow, what a shocker! He has a wife and two kids right around my age plus at least 1 grandkid. This really puts into perspective how fast a loved one can be gone from your life.

The weekend was fun. Friday night, the Relay for Life was a BLAST! My LEGS were killing me on Sat though! I am not in good shape. There was a "Mr. Relay" contest and the guys had to wear a formal dress. My boss was in it. He got 2nd place and we all got a big laugh! Remember in the 80's the dressed that you could stuff newspaper/tissue paper in and they would fluff out at the bottom. This was the kind of dress he had on. IT was SOOOOO funny.

It was very nice to be able to walk the Survivor lap with my dad also. The teams lined the track and clapped as we went by. I had tears in my eyes the whole lap. Then you would look at the luminary bags and see people's names that you knew and it really makes me thankful for my family.

Sat was a pretty lazy day. Luckily hubby's brother did spend the night on Friday night so he could watch the kids Sat until we got up. I heard them at about 8:30am but considering it was 2:00am before I hit the sack, I was in no way getting up.

Sunday we hung out in the house cause it was just WAY TOO HOT outside. Plus the kiddo's both have sunburns from daycare last week (a whole 'nother story in itself) so I figured their little bodies needed a break from the sun for one day. Then my mil who we have not seen or heard from since last Nov 5 stopped by last night. She told us she is GETTING MARRIED! Yep. Her and my fil have been divorced since July 2002. She is marrying a man who is divorced because he chased his wife down the driveway with a shotgun! Ummmm yeah. Whatever. The wedding is in Sept. Hubby wants to go and so do I. I just hope his sister can handle this. As far as she is concerned, she doesn't have a mother (LONG STORY) and she is quick to hold a grudge so I hope she can handle that we are TRYING to have a relationship with mil. For hubby's sake, we don't need a big scene over this.

Not much else on the homefront. How was everyone's weekends???

FINALLY FRIDAY!

Well, Trace at http://trials-tribulations-of-trace.blogspot.com/ was wondering what people had planned for this weekend so here's my input...

Tonight is the American Cancer Society Relay for Life. This has such special meaning to me (as I've said in my other post about this) and I'm VERY excited. I'm super tired today though and I think it's because I know that I am going to be up late (aka ALL NIGHT!). Oh well.

Hubby's little brother who is 14 1/2 (is babysitting tonight). I know - we are supposed to have babysitters who are 18 and over only but he's family and who am I going to find that is 18+ that wants to spend the night at my house to watch my kiddo's??? Another benefit - hubby is helping his dad cut hay tonight and tomorrow (and for the next 3 weeks for that matter) and we don't get anything for the gas we use in our tractor or for the pickup since we use our pickup and trailer to haul the hay home. Yes we now have 3 cows of our own but we also have fil's cows at our house in our pasture for the summer for free SOOOOOOO Uncle S is babysitting "Emilee" and "JP" for $2.00 per hour! CHEAP SITTER! I will pay him something but I figure, we are helping them by using our tractor/mower/vehicle/trailer - he can help us out too. Am I mean? Normally we pay $2.25 / hour/kid if we are just going out for the night, but in this case, I don't think I should have to pay him the regular rate. Plus he will get paid tomorrow too cause I'm going to have him get up and feed them breakfast since I won't be getting home until who knows what time. Hubby will be in and out of the yard all evening and will be there overnight incase anything happens.

Tomorrow - hubby will be haying...I will be SLEEPING! Yeah right, like that will happen. It's supposed to be upper 80's tomorrow and upper 90's Sunday. :-) I plan to mow the lawn and work in my flowerbeds so that I can have Sunday at the LAKE! It should be fun.

Then Sunday night we have a funeral prayer service to go to as a guy hubby works with lost his mother yesterday. Sad deal! :-(

So what's YOUR plans for the weekend????

Great Cause

Well I am now the official chairperson of my employers American Cancer Society's Relay for Life team. What a great cause. This really hits home with my family. My dad is a skin cancer survivor and I am a cervical cancer survivor! Hooray for us!!! PLEASE if your local area has a Relay for Life scheduled for sometime this summer - be a participant. If you can't physically walk on a team - make a donation! Even $1.00 will help out. You can go to www.relayforlife.org and click on Find Relay Events - enter your zipcode and see if there is an event in your area. Cancer touches millions of people every year. Let's raise some money to fight this horrible disease! If you would like to help me out -leave a comment and I will send you the link directly to my page. :-) and on June 22 - PLEASE think of me and approx 500 other people in my community who will be walking all night to fight cancer!


**This is a sticky post that will remain at the top until June 22. Please see below for current posts.

ABC's of Who You are

I got this as an email forward and thought it was kinda cute so thought I'd share it with anyone (if there is anyone) who reads this on a regular basis to shed some light on who I am and what I like.


A is for age: 28

B is for beverage of choice (alcoholic or non or both): Non alcoholic-Squirt, water Alcoholic-Bud Light or Fuzzy Navels

C is for Career right now: Business Manager at Car Dealership

D is for your dog's name? Pepper

E is for essential item you use everyday : Deodrant - I think there are a few people around here who forget this ESSENTIAL item! :-)

F is for favorite TV show: Army Wives, Survivor

G is for favorite game: Compatibility

H is for your Hero: My mom! and all the foster parents out there!

I is for instruments you play: Piano (took 9+ years lessons)

J is for favorite juice: orange

K is for whose butt you'd like to kick: the court system who lets foster kids slip thru the cracks

L is for last place you ate: Pizza Hut

M is for marriage: 4 years

N is for nice things about the person who sent this to you:B is a great friend and an AWESOME scrapbook teacher! Thanks for getting me going with scrapping!

O is for overnight hospital stay: Pneumonia at age 11, Tonsils at age 12, Staph Infection in wrist last year

P is for people you were with today: co-workers, lunch with K, hubby & Kids at home tonight

Q is for quote: Always wear clean underwear

R is for Biggest Regret: I didn't keep in touch with my grandfather who lived in OK. He passed away last Aug.

S is for status: married

T is for time you woke up today: 5:35 am (YUCK! I know!)

U is for underwear you have on now: Purple ones (I know TMI)

V is for vegetable you love: Corn on the cob and peas.

W is for worst habit: Speeding.

X is for x-rays you've had: ankle, foot & wrist numerous times. Also had xray of "female" organs to see if there were any blockages once.

Y is for yummy food you ate today: Pizza Hut lunch buffet...YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY

Z is for zodiac sign: Gemini

Just thought this was cute. If you want to answer these questions - leave me a comment so I can check out your answers...If not, hope I didn't bore you too much.

Weigh In and other stuff

OK, I have to be honest. I forgot to weigh myself this morning before leaving for work. Check back tomorrow and I will do my weigh in. It's been a CRAZY few days and I'm extremely exhausted. Sunday night we had some tornado's in the area and straight-line winds so we went down to my fil's at 11:30pm with the kids. We came home again about 1am after everything had settled down. Then I was up at 5am as I had a training class in a town 60 miles from where I live that started at 8am and I had to get the kids back to my fil's so he could take them to daycare for us. UGH! A new day is here today but I'm a nervous wreck because I have to go take my test from class yesterday. My job depends on me passing this test so I need to study and that's what I was doing and forgot to weigh myself this morning. Keep your fingers crossed. I'll know late this afternoon how I did....back to studying.

I HATE YOU...

these were the words that I heard last night from "JP". It broke my heart to hear him say them. When I got to daycare to pick them up last night, my daycare lady told me that "JP" had a bad day. He was jumping on the furniture and had to be disciplined. He knows better so I was a little embarrassed that he acted this way, but then again -he's 4 years old. I don't know if I've ever said this but my daycare is also 1st cousin to my mom so I've known her FOREVER. It really is great. She is a breast cancer survivor and I wish I could be half the woman she is and I'd be happy. She also watched my nephew when my brother and sister-in-law lived in town so I've been stopping by there lots the past few years. Anyways she has no set hours that she is open so that is really nice. So on the way home last night I asked "JP" how daycare was cause the kids were outside playing when she was telling me what happened. He told me fine and then "Emilee" told me that "JP" got in trouble. I told her that i wanted to hear it from him and then he said he didn't do anything and "Kappy" yelled at him. I then started to explain what I was told and he said she was lying. Well, sorry - I knew better than that. It was already 7:30pm when we got home and they usually are in bed by 8pm anyways so we started getting ready for bed right away. Well "JP" wanted to play. I said NO, it's time to get ready for bed. He then preceded to try and slam the bathroom door in my face and it hit his step stool he uses to wash his hands and then bounced back and hit the wall. Luckily we have a door stop on the wall so it didn't do any damage, but this about got my goat! I was not a happy camper at this point. He then preceded to spit his toothpaste on the floor instead of in the sink....Yep I'm almost seeing red by now. Then he stormed into his room and slammed that door. (Yep flames are brewing). I helped him put his jammies on since he refused to do it and then put him to bed with his arms and legs flailing all over the place. I gave him a hug and kiss and told him I loved him and left the room with him screaming "I HATE YOU. I DON'T WANT TO LIVE HERE! I WANT TO LIVE WITH PAPA and B" (his old foster home). Yep now the tears are rolling down my cheeks.

"Emilee" didn't quite know what to think during this whole ordeal. So now I'm crying and she is wondering why? I wiped my tears and put my mind to getting her to bed. Well since she didn't eat much supper at daycare because she claimed she didn't like it (they had roast/potatoes/gravy and we had just had that last weekend and she said it was her favorite) she was hungry. By this time it's already 8:20pm. I gave her a couple of crackers and a glass of juice and then it was off to bed. She has a habit of wanting to sleep with us (which we have NOT let her do) and so gets out of bed 10-15 times before she actually settles in for the night. By the time she was in bed to stay it was after 9pm. Then we were in the "I WANT MY REAL MOM" stage and she was crying.

Then hubby calls to see what I'm doing because he had went to his dad's before we got home. I had planned to take the kids down there for a little bit but I didn't think that they really deserved to go after a bad day at daycare. I know what happened at daycare was dealt with there but it was late and we are still trying to get used to our sleep schedules and I thought it was best to just go home and start the bedtime routine. Anyways, he tells me that they aren't going to be perfect kids and that I am too hard on them!! WHAT??? So am I being too hard on them? Because I make them go to bed at 8pm because they are up between 6:30-7am? Because after 1 week in our home I think it's time to START enforcing some rules? If we let them continue doing what they want for too long - it will be VERY tough to enforce the rules later on, don't ya think? I'm still pretty new at this with older kids so I'm open to some comments here. My comment to him was that if he didn't like how I handled things, then he needed to be in the house a little more to help out with them. He hung up on me.

UGH! Welcome to foster care with kids old enough to know what's going on....and goodbye "honeymoon" period! (But I'm still lovin' every minute of it!)

More Great Giveaways at 5 Mins for Mom

Ok. I just LOVE this site. 5 minutes for mom has another great giveaway with a package full of baby products from cvs pharmacy. If you have little kids or are expecting, you NEED to check this out!

http://www.5minutesformom.com/1725/cvs-playskool-contest/

http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/cvs/gateway/promotion?pid=5933

Although I don't have a baby in my house right now, we have in the past and this would come in VERY handy. Also, my identical twin sis is expecting in Sept and what a GREAT baby gift this would make for my new niece/nephew.