It's a Christmas shopping miracle!! (Miracle #2 if you're keeping count)

Our three youngest kids started Christmas break this week, so today I took them to Costco to load up on the samples so I wouldn't need to feed them lunch. (seriously, they had a sample of the best clam chowder!)

I also planned to buy a few Christmas gifts while we were there, specifically two movies that I was looking for, and I knew that Costco would most likely have the best price for them.

When we first walked in the store we went directly to the DVD section, and we split up to look for the two movies.

We thoroughly scoured the shelves, looking for the two DVDs then finally came to the conclusion that Costco just didn't sell these two movies.

We walked through the store and completed the rest of our shopping. (and samples, we tried every one of the samples) I was disappointed that we hadn't found the movies because now I would need to stop at yet another store on the way home.

As we headed toward the check stand, I remembered that we needed Oreos. (what, you don't ever have a situation where you NEED Oreos?)

We wove through the different aisles and dodged the many overfilled shopping carts until we found the Oreos.

We put two boxes in our cart. (Hey, I said we needed them)

As we turned around to go to the Check stand, Brielle noticed something on top of some boxes of granola bars.

"Hey mom, look! Isn't that one of the movies that we were looking for?"

Sure enough, sitting right there was the first movie.

I picked it up and inspected it in disbelief, then I noticed another movie just a little farther back on the granola bars. I turned it over, and it was the second movie we were looking for!

(You just got tingles going down your spine, didn't you?)

I was in disbelief. I even dragged the kids back to look through the DVDs one more time, just to see where we had missed the movies, but we couldn't find any more of them, anywhere.

It seems that we found (and purchased) the last two of those movies in the store.

It's a Christmas shopping miracle!!

Look out! We're going to CRASH!

My Friend Crash is in the running to get this sweet new job, only she needs our votes to get into the final round.

She's a fabulous writer, cute as a button, and it would be really cool if she won!

Why should you vote for her, you ask?

Well, I'll tell you why!

Top Ten reasons why you should vote for Crash

#10 She is in tune with the Universe.

#9 When she wins, she will buy everyone a pony.*

#8 Even though she believes in unicorns and glitter, she isn't annoying like Flo from the Progressive commercials.

#7 She cares about our fiber.

#6 When she wins, there's a pretty good chance that she won't increase the national debt.

#5 She is a better dancer than Bristol Palin.

#4. If you don't vote for her, Max will send Naughty bird, Naughty frog, Naughty Rabbit AND Naughty Reindeer to live at your house.

#3. When she wins, we can all say that we knew her back before she was all famous.

#2 She has AWESOME footwear.

#1. Vote for Crash, and your wildest dreams will come true!

Please click on the button above and vote for her! It's super easy! Only two clicks, then come back and tell me that you voted, so I don't have to send all of the naughty animals to your house.

You can vote once a day, every day for the next 5 days. If she is in the top 20, then she will make it to the final round, and that would be so awesome!

Some have said that you can vote once a day from every computer, or phone, or iPod or whatever, but it might be one vote per IP address, in which case, I will be driving around town, using the free Wi Fi from every public library, Starbucks and Burger King I can find.

Remember, vote early, vote often, tell your friends to vote too.

Thanks a bunch!!!!

*I didn't actually check with her on this one, however, I'm sure that she'll follow through.........OK, maybe not really sure, but I think that she would really like to buy everyone a pony, but then again, maybe not, perhaps she doesn't like ponies, but you'll have to ask her, because she's the one that would be buying the ponies (or not) and I really don't have any clue where she would buy that many ponies in the first place, and can you just imagine what a mess they would make in her back yard while they wait for you to come and pick them up? Yes, you would have to pick up your own pony yourself. WHAT? you don't think you should have to pick up the pony yourself? HEY, the pony is free (or at least relatively so, considering that you will need to vote for her every day for the next five days, but really, how hard is it to click on a link and then click one more time to vote for her) the least you could do is pick up your free pony yourself!
I mean if she actually does buy the ponies, and like I said, I didn't actually ask her if she would be doing this.

Maybe she will just bake you a cake, she does deliver cakes.

My 15 seconds of fame

Just going to take a minute to toot my own horn.

Have you seen this commercial?

I made the dress that the skater is wearing. ( :29 and :36)



It's been so fun to see this on TV!

Snow is falling all around, on the housetops on the ground..........

Shoveled snow.

Can't. Move. Arms.

Stupid snow.

Stupid, stupid snow.

My kid is an inventing genius! Announcing the Remote controlled Tankvac 2000

Aaron just invented a new way to sweep the floor.

Then he took it a step farther and adapted his invention for vacuuming the carpet.

Yes, he's invented a remote controlled /vacuum combo! Now your kids can all fight over who gets to sweep the kitchen floor or vacuum the carpet!

Now if he could only invent a remote controlled dishwasher loader/emptier, a remote controlled toilet cleaner a remote controlled laundry folder..............

Making the grade

The kids brought home their report cArds lAst week. I won't go into detAils And tell exActly whAt grAdes they eArned, however, I will sAy thAt we Are quite pleAsed with how hArd they hAve worked this yeAr. We're so impressed with the effort thAt they hAve put into their schoolwork And for the AmAzing improvement they hAve mAde since lAst yeAr!

I just wAnt to tell my kids thAt they Are Awesome!!!

Whoa, that's chilly.

For the last two days I have been looking for my deodorant.

I have searched everywhere that I thought it could be. (but not very strenuously, to prevent myself from sweating)

I just found my deodorant in the freezer.

Any guesses as to how it got there?

HEY! WE WON'T HAVE TO SEND HIM TO MILITARY SCHOOL!!!

Last week at school CJ took a survey to see what types of careers he would be best suited for.

He was quite excited to find that his career recommendations included things such as;

Computer hardware designer
CJ is our resident computer expert. He can figure out anything with my computer. Except how to get my Photoshop back. But then again, we've had that version of Photoshop longer than we've had CJ.

Artificial intelligence specialist
When CJ was younger, he had plans of building a robot that would clean his room for him. And instead of cleaning his room, he wanted to sit in his messy room and think about his magical room cleaning robot, and when we told him to get up and clean his room, he would say that we were just keeping him from inventing his robot that would clean his room for him.
I think he was just trying to get out of cleaning his room.

Biochemist
He has always loved mixing baking soda and vinegar together.
Diet coke and Mentos interest him too.

Roller coaster designer
What kid wouldn't want to do this? Someday I should post the picture of CJ riding the little roller coaster at Legoland. The look of sheer terror on his face is really quite sad.............and a little amusing.

Acoustical engineer
See the video I posted yesterday. CJ did all of the vocals and beat boxing himself.
No, I don't get the video either. What can I say, he's 13.

Mechanical engineer
or
Electrical engineer
When he was younger, he liked to take apart small appliances and use the parts to make different "inventions" Fortunately his grandpa kept him supplied with old cassette tape players and radios for his projects.

Computer animator
We have some computer animation software on my computer and he is teaching himself animation.

Perfumer
This one has me a bit baffled. However, if he could design a perfume that would counteract the aroma of flatulence, I would be incredibly grateful.
One of our kids (who will not be named) is extremely gassy.


While I think that CJ would be highly qualified for any of these career paths, today he took a quiz that makes me think of a different profession that he would be highly qualified for.

"What profession is that?" you might ask.






Kindergarten teacher




Seriously.


You might also be thinking that it's a bit of a stretch to go from Computer hardware designer or Biochemist to a kindergarten teacher, however if you look at the results of the quiz, you will understand why.









29

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

I'm SO proud!!









I think.


Seriously, I only scored 20. Aaron scored 25 and he's only eight.


Go ahead and take the quiz and leave your score in the comments.

MOM - The destroyer of fun

Yes, I knew that "cool mom" title was too good to last.

Today was the last day of the school year for us. (we are on year-round school)
So, being the"cool mom" that I am, decided that when I picked up the kids from school, and after I went to the bank, I would take them to Sonic for shakes.
What kid wouldn't be absolutely THRILLED with this activity?

Yep, you guessed it, one of mine.

"But I don't like their shakes, they're gross! Why can't we just go to McDonald's and get sundaes?"

Now, while that also sounded like a great idea, I was really in the mood for a Sonic shake.

The child says "Why can't we just go to Sonic AND McDonald's?"

That didn't sound like too bad of an idea, and I was just about to say that we could do that, when a second child pipes in and says "I don't want to go there either, why can't we go to Wendy's?"
And another one says "Yeah, we should go there and get hamburgers also. We got out of school before lunch today, and I didn't eat breakfast either, so I'm starving!"
Then the first child says "No, I don't want Wendy's, I want to go to McDonald's and get a parfait!
"NO" says another "I wanted a Sonic shake! We should get burgers at McDonald's, and then go to Sonic for shakes!"
"I don't like Sonic shakes!"
"I don't like McDonald's hamburgers. Mom, can I get chicken nuggets instead?"
"But I want to go to Wendy's!"
"I also wants a seesebugah!" (translation - cheeseburger)
"But they don't have yogurt parfaits at Wendy's"
"So, we should just go get shakes at Sonic!"
"And I also do want a sockwit miwk!" (chocolate milk)
"But I don't like shakes at Sonic!..............."

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the car at the drive through window of the bank, wondering at what point this all went so terribly wrong.

And I made an announcement.

"I'm thinking that we don't really need to be going anywhere."

I am met with a sudden silence from the back seat.

I continue "but since I'm such a cool mom, we will go to ONE location, and I will decide!"
I know all too well that at that point, I probably should have just gone ahead and driven home with no treat, but I suddenly realized that I was, in fact, quite hungry myself, and was quite in the mood for something yummy. I also noticed a McDonald's that was right next to the very bank from which we were leaving.

"We will be going to McDonald's. Each of you will be given TWO dollars to spend in any way you please!
"BUT MOM!"
"No" I reply, "Two dollars. I don't care how you spend it, but that's it!"

That kept the little darlings happy until the two of them that wanted chicken nuggets discovered that they cost 2.95.

Too bad for them.

By the time we left the McDonald's, the kids had decided that I was still "cool mom." I guess filling them with sugar laden, highly processed food will have that effect on children.

Then we got home.

As I walked in the kitchen I realized that all of the things I had asked the children to do the night before, had not been done.
There were still mounds of craft stuff on the kitchen table (homemade end of the year teacher gifts) The dinner dishes were still in the sink, the floor had not been swept, and the kitchen counter had many kid-related, 'shouldn't be sitting on the kitchen counter' sort of things just covering the surface.

And I made another announcement.

"There will be no summer fun until the kitchen gets cleaned up."

I have now gone from "cool mom" status to "Mom, the destroyer of fun!"

Because yes, I really do stay up nights just trying to think of more things I can do to make their lives miserable. It's my job, and I take pride in my work.
Apparently, my main goal in life is to make sure that my children have absolutely no fun.
Whatsoever.

I stayed quite upbeat, and even tried to make it fun "Come on guys, let's all work on this together" and I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
After working alone for about ten minutes, I realized that I had been working alone for ten minutes.

Nope. There will not be any fun had in this house this summer.

None.

Because I'm such a cool mom

Yes, that's me. I'm such a "cool" mom.

Do you want to know why I'm so darn cool?

Because it's 2:00 a.m. and I just finished making Brielle a new dress to wear to school tomorrow for her awards program.
The kids are supposed to dress up, and we decided that it would be fun for her to have a new sun dress to wear.
Of course, if I had started the dress sooner than 10:00 p.m. I would have finished it sooner, and been asleep by now, but something keeps me from working before the sun goes down.

Anyway, the dress turned out really cute, and I would post pictures, but it's 2:00 a.m. and CJ is asleep, and he's the only one who knows how to get pictures downloaded onto my computer. The poor kid gets so annoyed every time I ask him to do that for me. The last time I asked, he looked at me with the face of a teenager that says "seriously mom, could you BE any more technologically inept?" and he said "Mom, you really need to learn how to do this yourself, because some day, I might be gone somewhere, and you'll need photos on the computer and you'll be stuck." to which I answer "You're here now, techno-boy, do your stuff!"

Anyway, back to the dress, as I'm sewing this lovely creation, trying not to burst out in fits of frustration, because I hate using patterns (HATE IT! HATE IT! HATE IT!!!)

But honestly Jill, how do you really feel about using patterns. Don't be shy, just tell the truth.

I strongly dislike using patterns. Probably has something to do with the fact that I don't like being told what to do.

Sorry, lost my train of thought. back to the dress.

As I was sitting there sewing, Brielle and Max were looking through a Prom Dress magazine. (Please don't ask me why I have a prom dress magazine. It's a long story)

Brielle was showing Max the pictures of the dresses, and she was trying to get Max to say "Is she hot?" (like Pedro says to Napoleon Dynamite when he's talking about his (fictitious) girlfriend.) You know, because it's really cute when little kids say stuff like that.
Finally, Max found a picture and said...............

"She also hot!"

Then while looking at a picture of two girls he said

"They cute!"
"They also hot!"

(Turns the page)

"This one also colder"
Apparently, he didn't find her as attractive as the others. I felt kind of bad for the poor girl, I mean if you can't impress a three year old, who can you impress?

Then Max says
"I also hot too!"

Then looking back at the magazine....

"And these ones are also hotter!"

By now, we were giggling, because, seriously, this was pretty cute.
Until.............

"Mama's cold!"

What?
Did my darling little three year old just dis me???

I mean I will admit that I'm not in as great of shape as I was before I had the kids, but come on!

FOUR c-sections people! FOUR OF THEM!!!!!

The first one weighed over TEN POUNDS! 10.6 to be exact!
I have stretch marks up to my armpits!

Who does that little tot think he is...............cold am I?

Then it dawned on me.

I'm a "Cool" Mom!


(At least that's what I'm going to assume he meant)