Easter pics and Cole's first pinewood derby

Cole's first pack meeting was tonight, so he got inducted into the troop and I got to paint his face. He was happy when he got to get even with me and painted mine. After that, he had his first pinewood derby. We found out about the pinewood derby race a week before it happened, and unfortunately, Jason had a tennis tournament to string for last weekend. So time was short for he and Cole to get it ready. If you've ever built a pinewood derby car, you know that it takes a lot of time to get them ready, and they just didn't have it. I think Cole was happy with the completed car regardless, but Jay and I knew it wasn't going to win. Sure enough, he didn't win any of his races. But, even though he was disappointed, Coley was a really good sport. He was giving everyone high fives, and he says he knows exactly how he wants to design his car for next year. I was really proud of him for being a good sport and keeping his disappointment in check--not so easy to do for an eight year old.

Too reasonable to be nine

While I was making dinner tonight, Bailey and I were having a discussion about Twilight. Her first comment was that it's becoming really popular (and I think I earn good Mom points for not saying, "duh"). A couple weeks ago I found her reading a copy of New Moon. She had just grabbed it off my shelf and started to read, not asking me for permission. I told her I didn't want her to read it, and she was okay with it. So tonight she was telling me that a lot of the girls in her class have been reading Twilight, and I asked her if she knew why I didn't want her to read it. She said no, so we had a discussion about love and how I just feel like she's too young to be reading about love that way and that it in no way resembles a real relationship (hopefully I didn't scar her for life when I told her that real relationships are more like my relationship with her dad--that we fight sometimes but we really love each other). I also told her that since she's still developing her ideals and sense of self and that I feel like she'd be too impressionable for that book.

So now comes the part where she's just too reasonable. She told me that she thinks that me and Jay must love her more than other parents in her class love their kids because they let their kids do a lot of stuff that we don't approve of. Who the heck is this kid and why is she so reasonable. And someone please tell me that she'll be this way as a teenager--that would be awesome.

A week late but nice

Jason and I finally got to have my birthday date tonight. We just went to the Yard House and had a tasty dinner. We were going to try to make a movie, but we didn't make the early show and 8 am church is awfully early, so we decided that was enough. It was really wonderful to be out with just him though. I'm grateful for the time I get alone with my honey. Ten years later and I still love him to death. Thanks for the nice date sweetheart. :)

It's amazing how fast

My kids can get on my nerves. I was alone in the office all day so you'd think I was ready for a little noise by the time school gets out. By the time I got them, though, I was already frustrated. They're doing construction on the main street between my work and the kids school and no matter what time I leave work to get them, I'm always rushed. Then the crossing guard on that side of the school is an idiot. She will stand in the middle of the street holding up a line of cars while she waits for kids to finish walking down the street to cross. For some reason she thinks it would be bad if the kids had to wait a minute or two to form a group to cross.

So then when I get in the line of cars waiting to pick up, I can see that they're already shooing the kids inside to call parents. They only give you ten minutes to get your kids and then they're done waiting, if you're one minute late, they're inside. Obviously it doesn't even matter if the line of cars has finished or not yet either. It's so ridiculous. So I tried to get Lindsay to see me, she's the only one I could see, and of course she doesn't so she starts heading inside. I tried to park really quick and shout her name, but she was already in the door. So I had to run inside real fast to get her (because of course the pick up lane is a fire lane, so if there's a cop around, I'll be getting a ticket), and come to find out that Cole is nowhere to be found. Lindsay said he went back in to get his homework (he brings home homework for the whole week--notice it's Thursday and he's just now bringing it home? Yup, it's been that kind of week). He knew he'd better not forget it today cause I would just go livid on him. Anyhow, so I really can't be blocking the fire lane, so now we have to go out and move the car while we wait for him. Then I had to bring them to my office with me because I can't leave until 3:30 now, and of course the first thing Cole does when we get there is to start messing with this pen that I have that I've told him 100 times not to mess with. Oh, that and not starting his homework. Sometimes I feel like he's still a toddler--I have to lead him around to make him do stuff. Anyway, by the time we got home this afternoon, I'd already had it with the kids. I hate that. And the heat's giving me a big headache too, so that doesn't help things.

One good thing that happened today, Bailey got to go to work with Jason for a "take your child to work" day. I guess she had all kinds of activities and fun things to do (all away from Jason, which I thought was rather ironic, but I guess they actually need him to work). She thought their cafeteria was awesome, and she had a lot of fun.

Another year and another hectic week

This week I began my dreaded Anatomy class, and so far it's as hard as I was afraid it was going to be. It seems that the older I get, the harder it is to memorize anything, so that's definitely going to be a challenge. My last class was an accelerated format, so she busted our butts, but only for eight weeks. I was thinking because this was a sixteen week class that the pace would be a little easier, especially for a working mom. Boy was I wrong. My professor assigned three chapter to read which turned out to be almost 150 pages worth of reading, plus two labs and two quizzes. Really crazy. One of the labs was all about learning the regions of the body, so that alone has taken me a couple days to memorize. Not to mention with taking an online class, I'm not sure of the pronunciation of some words, so that's a little tricky. I just keep plowing on, though. I keep reminding myself of how worth it it will be once I've finished.

I think birthdays get worse and worse when you get older. This year there was a tennis tournament in town, so Jason was down at the tennis center all day. My birthday happened to be the first day of the tournament, and he was supposed to have help because they knew it was going to be chaos. Well, his help showed up at 11:30 (very late), strung about five racquets, then took off. Jason found out the next day that he'd done about 45 racquets that day. But, that didn't leave him the time to have either lunch or dinner with me. And he had been running on about an hour of sleep because of the racquets he had to get done the day before the tournament. So I saw my husband for about a half hour on my birthday. My parents were here visiting my kids, so they at least took me out for dinner, but I was still pretty bummed. Not to mention I was going to take the day off and my boss had agreed that I didn't have to use vacation time since it was my birthday. Well, Monday my boss was forced to resign, so I'm back in transition where I have no boss, I have to log on to the computer every hour so they know I'm there and it's tedious and boring. I also would have had to use vacation time for my birthday, so I didn't take it off and sat there all day. The only good thing to be said for that is that I have nice quiet study time for the most part, and I get paid to study. Things could definitely be worse.

Easter weekend

Today has been pretty hectic. I met with the couple that I'm making wedding invitations for so they could choose what they like and we could refine what I've done so it suits them. Unfortunately, they were a couple hours late to our appointment. And while I knew they were going to be late, it made the rest of my day more crazy because that wasn't the only thing I had going on. They ended up having to wait for me to be ready for them because by the time they got here I had a couple things on the stove and cupcakes in the oven. But, when we finally got to meet and I could show them what I had done, they were really excited. It was really fun to see their eyes light up when I showed them the samples. And now that I know more what they want, I can put together a final prototype for them. I have to say, they were really impressed with what I'd done for them so far, so that makes me happy.

We're doing an Easter egg hunt with some neighbors, and we were planning on doing it at the park, but it's a downpour today, so we'll be moving it inside. But, we're doing a potluck and the kids will all get to play, so we're really looking forward to it. I made pasta salad (which I love to have an excuse to make since I'm the only one that really likes it, so I don't make it often), and cookies and cream cupcakes, and peanut butter cup cupcakes. Jason thinks I made too many cupcakes, so hopefully we don't have to bring them all home, but I know he's excited by the peanut butter cup ones. This is my first time making these two varieties, but I got the recipe out of a book for the kids, so I'm pretty sure they're going to be a hit. They sure look good.

And on top of all that, we haven't dyed our eggs yet, so we're going to have to come back early enough to get that. I hate rushing it because the kids have so much fun doing it, but I'm sure it will be fun either way. We're all ready for the Easter bunny to come other than that, so we're looking forward to having a little fun with the kids.

Hope everyone has a happy Easter!

No more ER

Just a quick post in honor of my favorite show. I was so sad watching the last episode tonight. This show's been a mainstay in my life for the last 15 years, and I can't believe it's over now. When they were doing the flashback scenes before the finale, there was only one scene that I don't remember--I think I've spent almost every Thursday night watching this show, sometimes with my mom, sometimes with Jason. It's going to be hard to imagine another show taking it's place.