It happened again.

So, it's 1:02 a.m. this morning, and the stinkin' fire alarm goes off...AGAIN!!! I, of course, am the one who gets up while EVERY other person in the house is fast asleep.

I start hitting Ryan in the back and freaking out. As I am hitting Ryan in the back, he says, "enough, Aim," and starts hitting the alarm clock. (Apparently he thought it was the alarm clock) :)

We realize once again that it's probably just the battery going dead and get back to sleep.

So, the first thing on my list this weekend is to go ahead and get a new battery for that thing. I think being woken out of a sound sleep like that 2 times is enough! :)

O.K., so maybe I over-reacted....

Last night was quite a night, to say the least. I actually went to bed around 9:30, which is super early for me, but I had been canning food all day and was just beat.

Around 11:30, Brett came into our room because he was scared, and as he walked into our room he banged into the trunk that is in front of our bed, making a pretty loud noise and scared me out of a sound sleep. Ryan happened to wake up because of the commotion as well.

A little background :

For those of you who don't know me well, I get scared - VERY EASILY!!! It's a downfall of mine, but I just can't help it. My girlfriends get a kick out of scaring me, and it drives me nuts! (Yeah, I'm talking to you Susan and Faith!!!:) )

Anyway, so Brett was scared last night, which ended up scaring me and then waking Ryan up - not a good scene. I comforted Brett - he laid with us for a bit. Put him back to his bed and then went back to sleep.

Fast forward to around 2:48am...

The fire alarm goes off for just a couple seconds. Of course, I jump up out of bed, except this time I yell "FIRE!! FIRE!!! Ryan! The fire alarm just went off! Ryan! Ryan!!" (I'm actually quite surprised that none of the kids woke up.)

A little background:

For those of you who don't know Ryan very well - it is hard to wake him up - VERY HARD! And he's also a very calm guy - doesn't get scared very easily. Complete opposite of me.

Back to the story, he casually rolls out of bed and stands at the top of the stairs and says "It's fine, Aim."

"It's fine" was just not good enough for me to just be able to get back into bed and fall back to sleep. I made Ryan go downstairs and check for smoke!?!?!? Realistically, I think if the fire alarm was going off because there was smoke in the house, we would've been able to smell it at the top of the stairs.

Down the stairs he went to check everything out - he's good like that! :) Of course, things checked out fine and back to sleep we went. Not before having a good laugh about the events that just transpired. I ended up with a little case of the giggles, which is always fun at 3 o'clock in the morning! :D

At around 3:30 Chloe tip-toed into our room and tapped me on my shoulder. I, of course, was in a sound sleep and did a quick scream, until I realized that it was Chloe. Chloe said, "Mom, it's fine! It's just me!" I couldn't help but immediately start to laugh and giggle. It was all just too much for one night!

So, maybe I overacted, but it sure makes for a good story! :)

Challenging to say the least

As you know, Brett started full-day school this year. It's only 2 days a week, but that leaves two full days of just me and Owen - which I love!!! (Next year, Owen will go to school Mon. and Tues. and Brett will go Wed. - Fri., so I'm looking forward to those two days with just Brett!) :)

Anyway, my sweet Owen has had someone to occupy his time since the day he was born - Brett was/is his little partner in crime - for those of you who need a refresher of my little partners - check out this post and this post. I just re-read them, and boy o' boy they are growing up!

Back to the story now...

Owen has me all to himself on Mondays and Tuesdays. The first day I dropped the kids off, Owen asked if we could play Lego's just me and him. Of course I said yes, and then it progressed to Chutes and Ladders and playing ball, and just about anything that involved me and him. That first day, I loved it. Just time with me and my youngest son.

Fast forward to today. Again, Brett and Chloe go off to school, and it's just me and Owen. He starts to ask me to play this and play that, and all I wanted to do was clean my room. I instruct him that he needs to pick up his room and make his bed (he normally does this chore with his brother - they share a room.) He cried and cried cause he couldn't do it himself and he needed my help. We finally got through that and he asked to play outside. I sent him to the backyard and it wasn't two minutes later that he was bored and there was nothing to do. I gave him some bubbles, and he of course wanted me to blow them with him. Uggghhhh! We made brownies together today too! :)

Now, don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE having time with just Owen, but at this rate I am going to get NOTHING done!

So if anyone has any great independent games/activities for me to try out with Owen - please let me know! I'd really appreciate it

Crazy

So, I'm sitting in my car, on my way to Michigan. I find it absolutely crazy that I can get the internet while driving in my car.

Enjoy your weekend everyone - I know I will! :)

The First Day

Today was the first day back to school.

The kids were so excited they couldn't fall asleep last night, and they were up before I was out of the shower, which was pretty early for them. Brett was particularly excited, because this is his first year of school - Pre-K! Where oh where does the time go!



Chloe started 2nd grade! My goodness!


I think it was so sweet how Chloe was instructing Brett to behave, or he'll get on the "red light" at school. And what time recess is, and who will be out there, etc. She was really excited for him. We'll see how long that lasts! ;)

On the way to school I told Brett that I would walk him into school, thinking that he, of course, would want that. He quickly told me that I didn't need to do that and that I could just drop him off at the door. I told him that I had to show Chloe her classroom, cause she wasn't able to make it to the Open House last night, so he finally agreed to let me take him into his class too. Phew! There's no way I could've just dropped him off!

He set his backpack down and went outside to play. I of course cried. It was just so easy for him. He was totally ready to just take the plunge and get it started. I was not.

I saw another mom that I knew, and she was wiping at her nose with a Kleenex. I was excited, cause I thought I was going to be the only mom crying (that seems to be the case most years). I walked up and said, "Oh, Nikki! You're crying too?!" To which she replied, "oh - no, I just have a cold." So, again, I felt a bit like an idiot cause I was crying. I cry every year. My husband thinks I'm nuts because of it - and maybe other moms or teachers think I'm a bit nuts, but ya know what? I'm o.k. with that...

I had a date with Jillian

So, I finally bit the bullet - again...

This past fall & winter I was so faithful with doing one of Jillian Michael's Biggest Loser workout DVD's just about every day. Of course, summer came and I was at the lake most of the summer and just didn't make the time to do any workouts. I did a lot of swimming - does that count for excercise!?!? :) Summer is just about over here, (kids start next Tuesday) and I made the decision to just start doing the workouts again.

I started out with the Power Sculpt (I think that one is the easiest) although I have the Cardio Max, and the 30-Day shred (KILLER!). Once I get back into the swing of things, I will probably do what I did this past fall/winter: 20 minutes of Power Sculpt and 20 minutes of the Cardio Max. That was a good mix for me!

Wish me luck, and if anyone wants to join in and do these workouts too - let me know! I like to be held accountable!

We have a winner!!!!

Looks like comment #3 is our winner for the Ridemakerz giftcard giveaway:

MELISSA!!!!!

Contact me with your address so I can send the giftcard your way! :)

What's in your laundry?

I am always finding strange things in my washing machine after I wash a load of clothes. I always just place what I find in the same place in the cabinet above my washer, but I was noticing that the pile was getting a little too large. Let me show you...



First things first - I will admit that the bobby pin is mine, but that's about all that is mine! :)
Let's see, there's a bouncy ball, a drill bit, a socket, a bug tweezer/magnifying glass, an almost gone tube of Loonie Balloonie ( if you've never tried it - go buy it!!!) an eraser with a frog earring stuck in it and a seashell (have no idea where that came from - I'm gonna have to do some investigating!) :)

So, what strange things do you find in your laundry?!? Share them!!

Eagle Eyes

Apparently, in order to go bird watching, you must wear winter boots and swim goggles...

RIDEMAKERZ (and a phenomenal giveaway!)

O.K. guys, have I got a great product/store to share with you!

Ever hear of Build-A-Bear Workshop? Well, it's kinda just like that, but geared towards boys! It's called Ridemakerz. The founder of Build-A-Bear Workshop collaborated with Larry Andreini, the entrepreneur behind Ridemakerz.

When you head out to a Ridemakerz store, a customer selects a chassis type (street or monster); body styles (stock or custom, a Ridemakerz brand hot rod, a Ford Mustang GT or Dodge Ram pickup, to name a few options); paint schemes; sound effects (for example, sirens or race sounds) and style of locomotion (free wheel or radio-control).

After the 10-to12-inch cars are assembled, there are ample customizing and accessorizing options: tire treads, grille guards, side pipes, snowboard racks and decals. Mr. Andreini estimates that a fully tricked-out vehicle will run about $75, including $25 for radio control. For the budget-minded, there's a stock tuner car for $12.

The fine people at Ridemakerz sent an incredible package, that included everything I needed to build a car with my boys.
The boys each took turns assembling different pieces of the car. Owen needed a bit of help (he is only 3), but Brett was able to do just about all of it! Chloe didn't help because she was at a sleep-over, but I'm sure she would've been able to do it just fine! Oh, and don't fret about this only being for boys - they've got purple and pink painted cars too that I'm sure any girl would love! :)
The finished product!!!
We took the car and the remote to the street, and believe it or not, each boy was able to do it with ease! I thought for sure that Owen would have a hard time, but he figured out the remote pretty quickly! They loved it!

So, let's get to the good part: Ridemakerz sent me a $100 gift card to give away to one of my readers! That's right, $100!!!!!!

Here's what you have to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post. If you don't have a blog - leave a way that I can contact you if you win.

2. If you have a blog, you can get an extra entry by posting about this giveaway and linking back to my blog.

3. If you have a twitter account, you can get an extra entry by tweeting about this post! (you'll have to notify me if you do this so I can follow you and verify this.)

4. Let me know in the comment section if you did any/all of the above.


This contest will close at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, July 20, 2009 and I will announce a winner on Tuesday, July 21, 2009.