Crying Out To Jesus (and other things)

Okay, I'm sitting on my bed, or I was sitting on my airbed (yes, still sleeping on an air mattress. Will be for a while.) with my heel over the hole the cat put in it to keep it from leaking air quite as quickly, until my leg got to tired from being in that position as I read others blogs, so now I have my knee over the hole which probably isn't as effective. Josh is getting a repair kit later today to fix it. The cats not allowed in our room anymore. We're pretty sure she did it with her claws. Ugh!

Anyway, I've been busy. Not busy packing, which I should be. Not busy cleaning, which I also should be. Busy doing laundry? Well, yes, of course, I'm always busy doing that! It's the never ending, all consuming chore!!! At least I don't have to use a broom to do the job, right Angela? :) Sorry, most of you will have no clue what I was just talking about, but I'm sure it will at least get a smile from my friend, Angela Gifford. And by the way, if you're wondering, yes, I did name my daughter after her. The one who's walking a very thin line right now. But you're all probably wondering what I'm so busy doing, since I'm not busy doing the things I should be doing right now. Well, if you read my last blog post, which was in the middle of what I was busy doing, you'll be glad to know, I've been busy reading scripture, crying out to God to just plain "help me!" (ever done that?) and to please change my desires, because as you know, I was desiring alcohol, which is an incredibly self-destructive desire of mine along with many other unhealthy desires I have, but I'm not as concerned about those right now. Which, actually, I must admit I felt much better and MUCH less concerned about getting drunk after I ate a Cappucino frozen yogurt with tons of different types of chocolate toppings that my man brought home from Jamms last night. Awesome place! If you have one near you, go!!! I love it! It's a little expensive, but it's a great treat once in a while! It just opened up here last summer and I'm in love. I only wish I could also visit the spa next door, which my daughter, Angela, did last weekend with her friend, Lucy, who goes to the spa all the time. She decided to treat Angela last week to celebrate her birthday a little late. Lucy and I share the same birthday, so I always remember her birthday. I'm still not speaking to Angela about such matters, because I have never in my entire life had a pedicure and the only time I had a manicure it was at a beauty school, so it wasn't really professional. Her hands and feet looked amazing and she kept telling me about the cool things they did to her feet that felt soooo good and I glared at her :) Anyway, thank you, Josh! You are my hero!!! How about a pedicure next time :) I'm just kidding. I know we can't afford that. I have no idea how you pulled off the fro-yo, except that you sacrificed for me, cause that's just how awesome you are! So, that's me right now. And, honestly, feeling a lot less of a desire to drink. I think about a whole lot more than just that now. Thank you, Jesus! I'm sure there will be a lot more temptations to come and a whole lot more pain as I work through things from my past. The hurt and the anger is surfacing so much, and you can ask my family, I'm extremely crabby, so pray for them, too, if you think about it.

The STRONGEST Strong-Willed Child

Have you ever had one of those days that you realize you've repeated a zillion times in the past with the same child and all your doing is going in circles with that child and you're so totally done you don't know what to do? Yeah! This has been one of those days. The Angela drama continues. I'm telling you this child misbehaves, complains that we punish her, whines and cries about it...LOUDLY!!!!!! and there's nothing you can do to stop her! She gives me a headache, makes me want to do things I won't talk about for fear I'll get in trouble for just thinking them!! I seriously was trying to figure out (in my head, anyway), how I was going to be able to send her to military school or boarding school or whatever those places are you hear about that parents who can't stand their children send them to! Or are just super rich and really busy and don't have time to bother! Or their kids are really smart, etc. etc. etc. ...you know the place I'm talking about. I don't even know if they actually exist. I just know I want to send this daughter whose name didn't work out so well for me to one of those places.

The current problem? Well, she's not passing some of her classes, largely because they're harder classes for her and she doesn't want to do the hard work of doing the assignments that don't come easy to her. She manipulates me into doing them for her. She won't listen to my attempts of just helping her and gets me to do it for her. So I've quit "helping" and told her she has to figure it out herself, so what did she do? Quit doing her homework, so she's failing. Then, she got mad cause we took some priviledges away. We informed her that's what happens when you don't take care of your responsibilities. Jeremiah got taken off the baseball team when his grades were bad, we take away her theatre stuff when she misbehaves, cause his thing is sports and hers is theatre. Yes, we've told her this a zillion times as well. Apparently, the rules shouldn't apply to her. Hmmmm. At this point I'm not caring. I was tired of hearing her whine and cry for HOURS so I said, "Fine, play on the Wii. I don't really care." That's it. I'm just done caring. Last weekend when I wouldn't make her the food she wanted at the time she wanted it she threatened to go to the neighbors and ask them to feed her telling them that her parents don't feed her. Some of you may recall we had an issue with this same child shouting out the window on the way home from school when she was punished, that we beat her, and then she tried to run away when I stopped at the gas station to get gas. I don't know if I brought that up on here or not, but yes, the issue of accusing us of abuse or neglect because she didn't get what she wanted has happened much in recent years. I fear much of this is my fault, since as a very depressive mother who tires easily I tend to give in way too often! Especially when she was a toddler. Not only am I a depressive, but I found myself pregnant with our third child when she was just over a year old and her brother was 3, so yes, you could say I was E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D while pregnant with a toddler and a preschooler. I pretty much let them do whatever they wanted in the house as long as they were safe. When I did have the strength and energy to discipline her I swear I felt like I nearly beat her half to death, I had to spank her so many times in a row, because STRONG-WILLED is an UNDERSTATEMENT with this child! She first openly and obviously defied me when she was only 9 months old!!!! I know they say that is developmentally impossible, but trust me when I tell you I KNOW what I saw in her eyes as open defiance. She first reached for something that I said no to which she quickly pulled her hand back indicating that she clearly understood the word no (we had slapped her hand while saying no to her many times and she's not stupid. She figured out what that word meant pretty quickly!). After that she looked at me, made sure I saw her and with that defiant look on her face she reached for it again. I don't remember what "it" was, but that's not the point! I knew I had quite a battle ahead of me with this child! Her brother did the same sort of thing at the same age, but he proved not to have nearly the perseverance of this girl!!! Oh, my! You have NEVER met a child who could throw a fit longer or harder than Angela Paparazzo!!!! I would almost be impressed if I wasn't the one left with the tasking of raising her! I laugh when I hear people say things about their toddler like, "Can you believe he threw a temper tantrum for 20 minutes!" Please!!!! That was a good day! Try an hour and a half!!!! I kid you not! I had a friend who came over at naptime when she was clearly tired and needed a nap, despite the fact that she didn't want to. I finally put her in her room, shut the door and told her to stay or else and she screamed and kicked the wall for an hour and a half before she finally fell asleep!!! This easily depressed mama didn't always have enough stamina to deal with that, so, yes, she often got what she wanted! I don't know how a child is just born like that, but I swear she was!! When she was three and four years old when I got up and was preparing to fix breakfast, I would sometimes ask the kids what they would like for breakfast, and if it was reasonable (like not candy bars) and we had it, sometimes I'd make it, other times I just made whatever I decided to make, like a normal mom (or I think that's what normal moms do. I have no idea. I've never been one or known one:)). Anyway, even if it was a breakfast she had chosen herself, once it was done, she inevitably would want something else instead and I would say, "No, you are going to eat what I made you." She would say "NO!" and I would basically tell her to sit her hiney down in her chair and eat what I made her or starve! She would put her hands on her hips, look up at me very defiantly and say, "You're not my boss!" I promise you I proved I was! But this was what we went through every morning for about two years. Once, getting curious, I decided to ask her if I wasn't her boss who was, and she said very matter of factly, "I'm my own boss!" She was four at the time. Oh, boy! Yep! I had me a tough one and I am at the end of my rope!

I do have to tell you when she told me she was going to tell the neighbors we don't feed her, I first said, "Go ahead. Have fun with that." I really didn't care. I knew if she did it would never come to anything. We've been through the CPS crap before with a neighbor that doesn't really like us. Besides, I also knew that deep down, she knows how the system works. If they did actually think there was something to it, they'd take her away, and she doesn't want to be taken away. She adores her daddy and loves shopping (mostly) with me. She wouldn't know what to do without us and I wonder if she actually knows that she wouldn't get what she wanted in "the system" either? I mean she's been to other people's houses and seen other kids get punished, so I think she's old enough and smart enough to figure out that all moms and dads have rules and some sort of discipline they adhere to. Granted she hasn't been in the most stable of homes with a mom who suffers from severe depression and anxiety and used to drink way too much off and on, but she's never been abused or neglected. She's always gotten at least 3 meals a day, sometimes with snacks in-between, so she's very strong and healthy. She's just extremely strong-willed and still, at 11 years old hasn't figured out that the world doesn't revolve around her! I'm exhausted. I have a headache, and I seriously do not know what I'm going to do with this child. Hopefully, I don't get any anti-spanking commenters on here. I've been through that all before. I don't agree and it's not illegal to spank your children in this state, so BACK OFF! Oh, and I'd LOOOOOOVE to see how anyone could raise this one without spanking!!!I promise. I've tried everything I know short of abuse or neglect!!!

My Kids And Their Accomplishments (Or beginning to be accomplishments!)

Well, basketball season has officially ended for Jeremiah. However, I still have to pick him up in the afternoons, cause he plans to spend some time in the weight room. He's got to keep up his manly figure I guess! LOL! The things I do for my children!! There is a parent meeting for Wrestling on Tuesday. I'm kind of guessing, since it's so close to Winter Break, that wrestling won't actually start until after the Break. I sure hope so!!! Of course, they may need to practice through the break to be ready, I don't know. This will be the first time we've entered the world of wrestling with our kids. I know, shocking, since my husband was a wrestler, even in college for a brief time!!! Jeremiah's just never seemed interested until now, and it wasn't exactly something we've encouraged the girls to try. I have no doubt both of them would! Angela has actually asked if she can wrestle, which I'm sure is quite surprising to all of you (sarcasm)! We haven't let her up to this point, largely because of finances and because she's been so inconsistent with the things we have gotten her involved with that we don't want to spend that kind of money on her. She would love Hockey, but that's the most expensive sport out there!!!! She was consistent with that when she played on a scholarship, so if I was made of money, I'd absolutely fork over the bucks for her to play!!! Her music teacher heard her singing the other day, and told her that she has a beautiful voice, but could use some help with the notes. She offered 10 dollars for a half-hour of voice lessons! So we'll be looking into that, probably after Winter Break! We do want her to be active in something. Of course, she wants to be a pop star! What young girl who's told she can sing doesn't?! I'm certainly not going discourage her by telling her that it's highly unlikely to happen!!! What if Justin Bieber's mom had told him that!!!?! Talk about an unlikely candidate. Small town boy in Canada with a single, teenage mother!!!! Yeah, not happening! And look at him now!!!! I personally would not have encouraged my son to enter that world at the tender age of 15, but he's not my kid, so I'll let his parents raise him as they see fit! Angela does have a beautiful voice. My other two can sing, also, but Jeremiah, at least, has other interests. Chloe, on the other hand, I am told is one of the best dancers, maybe THE best dancer in her dance class after school on Mondays and Tuesdays! I can't remember what kind of dance it is. Some hispanic type of dance, but she's very good at it, which is nice. I like that she's found something she does well. Her teacher, who is also her third grade homeroom teacher this year, tells me their are 7 different types of intelligences and based on what she sees in dance class, she would have what they call Kinesthetic intelligence, so while she may not be as strong academically as others (she works consistently at a 1st grade level, beginning to be more consistent at a 2nd grade level) she is smart, just in a different way. I knew this all along, but it's nice to have others notice as well. Maybe she's not "book smart" but she is smart! Not that we're not going to continue to work on her classroom work! We will, of course! Speaking of which.....

She just had her 3 year reasessment and the school psychologist decided to use a different type of IQ test on her this time and she tested in the normal range, at a 90 IQ!!! It's still slightly below average, but puts her in the normal range, which after working with her for some time, she felt more accurately reflects Chloe's true capabilities! This is why she chose to use this test instead of the one they did three years ago! It's so nice to see her testing in the normal range! They also said they have seen a significant change in her attentiveness, so they no longer consider her to be attention deficit! That was good news also, although, I do wonder if it's the coffee I've been giving her in the morning! That's okay if it is! She loves her coffee and obviously there seems to be no reason to change anything! She's progressing well as we hoped she would! Once again, this year's teacher has commented on her incredible work ethic and how self-motivated she is! She says she's not worried about her succeeding in life, because she's the type that will try anything and works hard at whatever she does, and will just keep trying until she gets it! She loves to learn, and you don't have to fight her to get her to do her work! In fact, while I was meeting with her SPED teachers, and other faculty that work with her, she was doing her homework, and was almost done before we even got home! And I hadn't even told her to do that. I had bought her an A&W Root Beer on my way to the appointment (her favorite beverage) to keep her happy while I met with her educators. She did drink all of her root beer, but she also did her homework. Her sister played basketball instead. Quite a difference between those two! I love them both! I had bought Angela a Pepsi which she also devoured! Of course, I couldn't leave myself out. I got one of my many favorite beverages, a Wild Cherry Pepsi:) It was fun!

And then, we went to what has turned out to be the last basketball game of Jeremiah's I would make it, too. I was not able to make the last two night's games :( It was the closest game I've seen them play, but I think they pissed off the other team when at the half it was 13-12 Moscow! They were proving that they are not pushovers! That they are truly becoming a force to be recconed (sp?) with! I think many of these boys, like my son, are playing competitive basketball for the very first time, so they are just learning the skills! Jeremiah has improved quite a bit, and just like in football has shown his athletic capability and aggressiveness. He has been known for his aggressive playing in baseball as well, as he loves to steal bases. That is one of his specialties with those quick legs of his! He did meet his match at one point this basketball season, as I watched him play against a boy he was supposed to be blocking, who at one point, flew past Jeremiah like he was standing still!!! And Jeremiah's pretty stinkin' fast, let me tell ya!!!! There's a reason I had to put him on a leash as a toddler! That kid could MOVE from day one! His uncle had him pegged as a running back in football from the moment he learned to stand steady enough on those little legs to run!!! He called it! That's for sure! Anyway, the second half of that last game didn't go so well. They were pushing those boys all over the court, and the refs were only calling about a third of the fouls that should have been called and nothing on the kids fouling Jeremiah!!! They were literally SHOVING him! He hit the floor so hard, even if you didn't see it, you could hear it at least 3 times! Jeremiah says there were about five times he should've gotten free throws! At one point when he was pushed I did hear the whistle blow, and thought, "It's about time!" but no! They didn't blow the whistle on that kid! They actually called it against someone on our team somewhere else on the court!!! It was ridiculous! He was pretty sore that night and came off the gym floor limping, cause he kept landing on that hard gym floor on his knee!!! It was awful! I hope he had a better time last night! They still lost, but hopefully, he got some good, positive playing time in! The whole team has improved a ton during this season! Pullman slaughtered them in their first game! I'm very proud of the boys! They've come a long way!

Oh, yes! And I can't believe I forgot to mention that Chloe tested out of Speech Therapy!!!! Go Chloe!!! She's still considered to have a learning disability, but she's improved so much in so many areas!!!!

An Alien Has Invaded And...Justin Bieber? What's He Doing On My Blog?!

Well, once again it's super-duper late, and I don't have much to say, but wanted to check in. I finally decided to get a real cold, not just that little itchy throat, and a little bit of fatique I was having there for a while. Not to mention, my toe flairing up again, my eyes hurting like I might be getting an infection there as well, and my ears plugged up. That sucked! But no, the kids had another 4 day weekend for parent-teacher conferences, which I got out of the way on Wednesday afternoon, so I could just relax and enjoy having my kids home for the rest of their long break. Well, I woke up from a nap on Thursday afternoon with what felt like much more than a scratchy throat. Sure enough, soon I was sneezing, and my nose was getting stuffy, and my head started to feel to big! This was not good. Angela and Jeremiah got a bunch of stuff in the mail for their birthdays. Cards and money. So, of course, Angela wanted me to take her out. I refused, and her dad said she could wait till tomorrow. It worked out well, cause Jeremiah would be going hunting with his daddy, for his 13th birthday! Yes, we now officially have a teenager!!! Not that we weren't dealing with hormones already! The kid's a hormone crazed....I don't know what he is? He's an alien, I think! That's it! The aliens came down one night, took the sweet little boy out of him, and put one of their aliens inside of him, so now he's all alien. He just looks human! That's it! That explains everything! Even the little glimpses I get of that little boy, because surely they missed a few parts, right?

Anyway, yeah, so now I've spent the entire vacation sick! I did take Angela to the grocery store, so she could buy a magazine full of posters. Mostly Justin Bieber posters, and then I helped her download some songs onto the iPad. Mostly Justin Bieber songs there as well. I was at one point going to make my kids only listen to Christian music, but I've decided that as long as it's not really evil they can listen to it. JB's okay. Nothing too immoral in his music. I've decided if I push her too hard, she'll really revolt on me and that could get ugly. The Bieber Fever ends, I do believe. Like I got over my mad crush on Donnie Wahlberg in the nineties, she'll get over Justin Bieber. (Did I just admit to being in love with Donnie Wahlberg on my blog! OMG!) Someday! Here's hoping! And praying, of course. That always helps. Anyway, after that I just stayed drugged on Nyquil, which I should go into my Nyquil induced coma right now, but I'm talking to you all. Anyway, wish my babies happy birthday! And good night!

Angela's Crazy Pictures And We're At Camp Grizzly, But Not Healthy:(

This is Angela experimenting with taking pictures of herself. What a funny kid! She wants her dad to start a photography Venturing Scout post, so there will be one for her to join when she gets old enough to join Venturing. It's a scouting program for boys and girls through the BSA. They always have a special emphasis. There is a cycling crew as of right now. He's working on a shooting sports crew. I'm sure that will be very popular in this area!

Anyway, as most of you know, we are at Camp Grizzly currently. Me and Chloe have been here for a week tomorrow night. Angela came up early with her dad. A couple of days before us. Jeremiah's team got third in their baseball tournament. They did play on Saturday morning, but they lost to Genesee, so they didn't make the final game. That was between Genesee and the Potlatch Loggers. I have no idea who won. I didn't stay long enough. I hope it was Genesee! The Potlatch dynasty needs to be taken down!!!! I will have some pictures from Camp Grizzly the next time I download more pictures! Right now people are helping in the Trading Post right next to me. I think they just got most of the candy and other snacks, so the whole staff is all excited even though they don't get to eat any of this candy unless they pay for it! We just got through eating all of the outdated candy that they took out of there, which is probably why I gained back all but 4 pounds I had lost! That and the fact that I can't walk like I had hoped to, cause I got an ingrown toenail that has become very badly infected. I had to go to QuickCare yesterday in Moscow, so now I'm on antibiotics. I actually waited a whole 'nother day past when the medic here told me I needed to see a doctor! I'm stubborn like that! Especially since I have no insurance and I know I have to pick up Jeremiah when he returns from Camp Easton and I have to take the kids next week to get their new lenses put in their glasses, since those are in. I was waiting until Jeremiah came back to do that, so I could do all three at once. Plus I had a list of things to get when I returned. Some I forgot, others we ran out of, like cold medicine, since I have three coughing children. Now much of the staff has sore throats! Of all the things I would like to share with the staff....that was not one of them!!! Oh, well, the joy of living with lots of other people in a sort of community. Everyone who's ever worked here calls it the "Grizzly family" because you do sort of become a family and all you have to do is work here one year and you never get out of the Grizzly family. It's permanent just like a blood family. You come back and they all embrace you! It's like the family of God, but not quite! It is good, though...most of the time!! Just like with a real family. Anyway, Josh took me in, because he had to discuss with them the fact that I needed taking care of right now, but we can't pay right now. They weren't real nice about that, but we got it taken care of, and we got my antibiotics and made an appointment for July 5 in Troy with my regular doctor to get the ingrown toenail removed. First we have to get rid of the infection for them to be able to do that! I don't think it's really hit the girls that my time in the water has been put off much longer now. The camp medic told me to stay out of the water. No swimming, but now that it's official that it's infected, I can't swim until at least the infection's gone. I don't know how long I have to keep it dry and clean after she cuts it out. Anyway, my girls are getting better, even though Angela's coughing half to death next to me. Or she was. Now, she's in the Trading Post. I did tell you that my posts would be very rough during Camp Grizzly, right?! Talk later. It's almost time for lunch!

Me, Speechless (Don't Faint)

Another picture of Angela singing. I don't have a whole lot to say. I'm really hungry, so I'm going to go eat!

Talented Kids

For some reason when I first put this on my computer wouldn't let me type! That was so weird! I also couldn't comment on anybody else's blogs or find another website. Anything that involved typing I couldn't do. I had to reboot the system to be able to type.

Anyway, this is Angela singing at our church's talent show. I didn't get a picture of Jeremiah cause I was too busy watching him. He didn't tell me what he was doing beforehand. He wanted it to be a surprise, so I was watching intently and forgot to take a picture. He played his recorder with his legs crossed and walking on his knees! Goofy kid! He couldn't just do a real talent. He had to be silly!
This is a picture he took of his baseball uniform for his facebook page!

Angela In Her Easter Dress

As you can see from these pictures, Angela was just thrilled (sarcasm) to have to sit down and have her picture taken! Moody little thing that she is these days. Hormones, you gotta love 'em...not!!!!

The White Elephant

This is my daughter, Angela, on the ancient (I'm pretty sure my grandmother rode this thing when she was a kid) white elephant outside the White Elephant store in Spokane. And yes, you're eyes are not deceiving you. It really is only ten cents still to ride this thing. I'm pretty sure they haven't changed the price since my grandparents were kids either. And actually, for us it was free, because when you make a purchase in the store (we made several), they give each of the kids a dime to ride the white elephant!

If you've never been to the White Elephant, you really must! It is the ultimate toy store! They have everything from big man toys to baby toys and everything in between! Our whole family loves it! Yes, including me, if I can yank my man away from drooling over the guns long enough to show him the things I love or that I think we should get for the kids! The kids were tired before we went here and just wanted to find a hotel so they could sleep. They'd never been to White Elephant before. I promised them that they would be instantly energized the moment they saw what was inside! They weren't too impressed at first (cause all they saw were guns and camping gear: the big man toys)! But then we arrived at the kids section! Oh, my goodness, they were not tired anymore!!!!!! It was hard to get them to stay in one place for 5 seconds! They were dashing from one thing to another, "Oh, mom! Look at this! Mom, look at this!" I found myself being pulled in 3 completely different directions at the same time! (Now mom's the one who's tired :)) It was so much fun. I myself got a giraffe beanie baby. Did I mention that they have great prices, too, or that I love giraffes? The one I really wanted I later saw in a toy store downtown and it was almost as tall as me!!!! I didn't even want to look at the price on that one. I told Jeremiah, "You're going to buy me that one, right?" He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I pretty much did when I saw that one! Although, I really don't know where I'd put it in this tiny house! It was a blast and everyone got something. Angela got a small set of PlayMobil stuff. Chloe got some toy plastic horses with mats to play with them on and fences and trees, as well. I don't remember what Jeremiah got? Josh got some stuff for camping I believe. It's a fantastic place! If you ever find yourself in Spokane, Washington, look up the White Elephant! It's a must! I vaguely remember going there as a child and loving it! I remember very little of my childhood. My life really is a big blur up until about 5th grade, when I was 12 years old. I have very few clear memories before that and most of what I remember is kind of confusing and mixed up with other things so much that I'm not even entirely sure what happened when.

Angela The Drama Queen Part 3

Another picture of Angela. I know, you're probably getting sick of her. Today, I am too. This is a very difficult "strong-willed child" day. I always like to steal Beth Moore's quote when it comes to her. She would "make James Dobson cry his eyes out." She would, too. I 've read his books and laughed bitterly over how I'd done all those things with no results and how none of his example kids even compared to Angela. Didn't give me a whole lot of hope. I'm still pretty much convinced that one of us is not going to survive her.

Angel The Drama Queen Part 2 (with Chloe)

Angela so did not want Chloe to have the spotlight while I was trying to take pictures of each of them. What else is new! (insert eye roll) I think she's actually laughing at her here. It was all in fun! Chloe was being quite silly! She has that tendency!

Angela The Drama Queen

Okay, and this is Angela being.....well.......Angela! She wants to be a pop star (we're not giving her that chance), and she's obviously very dramatic. She's my drama queen! (insert deep sigh here) We are (obviously) letting her take advantage of acting and singing opportunities in the community. We just feel very strongly that putting them in the spotlight on that large of a scale when they're so young is way too much pressure for them to handle, so we're not letting her get in on large national competitions or anything like that just yet. Okay, I need to go to CR now. Bye!

My Little Leprechaun

Angela's the girl in the glasses with the short hair. She was the best little Leprechaun in the world. I still call her my little Leprechaun when she comes home from school. We are about to go on Spring Break and we are going to have some much needed fun!

Our iPad

This is the marvelous, awesome gift that we got this year! If you don't recognize it, it's an iPad! I always thought they were kind of silly. I mean, they're like a giant iPhone that is also a laptop, and I'm finding you can't do as much with them as with a laptop. I much prefer a laptop for blogging and other word processing functions, but I must say I find it quite enjoyable and handy. I use it a lot for facebook and twitter, although there are some things you can't do on there with those, either. Currently I'm blogging on our desktop, because I just got a new laptop and it's not yet set up. We want to get our expert computer friend to help us figure out what antivirus program we want and help us get rid of the one that came on it that we don't want, because we've had problems with it before, so we're waiting for him to contact us before we set up my new laptop. I'll probably be telling you about that in a future post.

Have I mentioned that everything has to be about Angela, especially when I get out the program. Once again, so unlike her mother, but I'm getting over it. She has no desire to get over it.This is Angela's favorite app. Maybe she'll give me a chance to take a picture of my favorite app one of these days. Have you ever played this game? It's very silly, and I really don't see why everyone's so crazy about it. I got bored with it very quickly.

Me And Angela Being Silly!

So, my daughter, Angela, got home from school early today, because she caught a ride from one of our friends from church who has a daughter who also goes to the charter school. Plus, they live in the neighborhood and drive right by our house on their way back home anyway. So, she was having me help her with her homework. I was writing in my journal. Yes, I have one of those. You don't get the most personal side of me, believe it or not. I know, it's a scary thought, what might be in there, if this isn't the most personal that I get! It scares me, too! I'm just one big package of TMI!!! I try to save that for my journal!

Anyway, before you distracted me, while I was doing that she was doing her math homework. She knows better than to ask me for help with that. I have no left brain. As she says, writing is the only thing I'm good at. I'm not even sure I'm good at that, but who really does until you're published and the world says your awesome! After she finished her math homework, she asked me to help her with spelling, something EVERYONE knows I can help with!!!! She kept repeating the word "build" (one of her spelling words), so I kept teasing her, "Build what? What do you want me to build? You know I don't build! Your dad builds. I write. Fine, I'll build something." So, I started piling stuff up that was on my bed, which if you look at the headboard you can see that I'm quite talented at piling things. Have I mentioned on here that my house, expecially my room, looks like an episode from "Hoarders"? Mostly because we do need a lot of things with active 12, 10, and 8 year old children in the house. Not to mention a mother who loves to read and write and is addicted to technology! And we live in a single-wide trailer house! It's crazy, I know! Anyway, Angela saw the things I was piling up and she pretended like she was showing art and said, "Now, this is a piece I like to call 'the things mom needs.'" At that point all I had in the pile were my journal, our iPad, a book, and my bible. I said, "Hmmm, in that case somethings missing....oh, I know!" So, I grabbed my laptop with it's case and put it underneath the rest. Then, I said, "Hmmm, it's still missing something." Then, I grabbed my purse and pulled out my camera and my SSMT memory verse spiral and put them on the pile. If you want to find out what SSMT is, you'll have to visit Beth Moore's blog. Just look her up on the web. She has a link to her blog. Angela added my "iPod" which is really just an old iPhone without any phone service. The reason you see the pink chord is because one speaker was in my ear blasting praise music which I refused to take out! Obviously, I had to remove the camera to take the picture, so the "camera" that you see is really just the camera case. Yes, my sweet husband even bought me a case for my camera! In fact, he gave me that first. Maybe I'll tell you about that in another post. I'm no longer promising certain posts. I did that with my Ladies Retreat post and then my whole world fell in around me, or so it seemed, so I never got to it. That was a epic fail and I apologize! Please forgive me??? Anyway, this is the final piece of artwork "The Things Mom Needs." Seems pretty simple until you start adding up how much all of that costs!!! Please don't do that! You'll be depressed for the rest of your life! Moments later, after she finished her homework, I got a little too excited about something or actually don't really remember what happened, but I fell off the bed and cut my toe on a broken mirror in my room. Angela insisted on taking care of me like I do her when she gets hurt, so the next few are Angela hard at work on my toe! (I told you there'd be some randome silly things on here for a while!)

By the way, don't you think her haircut is just darling?! We all got new haircuts (some better than others :)) except for Josh who doesn't have any hair!!! That's okay. Bald men are sexy.

More Christmas Pictures

That interesting looking creature with no hair except on his face lounging on the couch would be my husband! He looks good lounging! With two jobs and a wife who can't work, he doesn't get to do that much. Again, my daughter. I'm thinking she must be standing on something. She can't be that tall, can she?! Actually, I'm not sure she is standing on anything! How did she get that tall?!

My Apologies And Angela, Again!

I know, I know. I'm trying to satisfy your curiosity with yet another picture of my beautiful daughter, but again it's the weekend, everyone's home and so it's hard to focus enough to write to you about what's been going on in my life. And I'm very mindful of the fact that I haven't finished telling you about the delightful weekend I spent with my friends! I don't know how the week always gets away from me like this. Well, this week, come to think of it, I know exactly how it got away from me. Three days of one daughter vomitting and one day of the other one with a nasty cold! Ugh! Hopefully, they'll all be healthy this week and we can get back to normal life, whatever that is!!!

Angela's Dress

I know I haven't been on here in a while. Sorry! I've been busy playing with my new iPad :) Anyway, this is a picture of my 10 year old in the dress she bought herself for Christmas!

Angela the Diva and Jeremiah "Cooking"

Angela, being her usual Diva self

Again

Jeremiah helping with Christmas dinner. Amazing! I practically have to twist his arm to get him to do anything at home. This is my Mom's house.