{Le Sigh}

I do not know what to do with these kids anymore. If its not Dawn getting in trouble for refusing to do her work its Gaige. I would have never told a teacher "no" when asked to do something.Did I play stupid quite a bit and pretend to not know the answer so that she wouldn't ask me again? You bet. But I never just flat out refused to do as I was told. Apparently these 2 believe this is OK. Why I don't know cause telling an adult "no" at home (or at grandmas) usually gets them a pop in the mouth (yeah yeah I don't care if you don't like it it happens).  I will not stand for my kids to grow up thinking they can talk that way to authority figures. Be it a teacher or a relative. That shit does not fly with me.

Last week I was picking up Dawn after an after school detention because she refused to do her work. She just flat out refuses to do it and doesn't care if she gets in trouble for it. Then she sits there and makes noises and disrupts the class. I just don't get that at all. If its confusing and frustrating, then say you don't get it. Don't throw a tantrum and think that's how you get out of doing the work. She knows she will have to do it at home or recess if she doesn't get it done at school. Ugh.

And today I had to have a meeting with both of Gaiges teachers because he is refusing to work now too. He hasn't done this since the beginning of the year. We got it handled and now its happening again. And I dont know if its because we are hardly in school anymore or what (due to the weather) but it has to stop. It has gotten so ridiculously out of hand that he is testing at a kindergarten level now and in Sept he was almost at 3rd grade. He just didn't want to do the test and that's all it was. Cause I know he's not at a kindergarten level. So today they decided that because he likes to just sit by himself at recess (which kind of makes me really sad cause he should have friends) and listen to his mp3 player that maybe that could be his reward for a good morning of working. Normally they don't allow electronic devices at recess but they are willing to make that exception if it will motivate him to work. And when I got him in the car I told him if this kept going on his weekends would be spent at home doing chores rather than going to his grandparents house where he wants to be. So yeah. Maybe this will kick him in the ass a littlebit and make him knock it off. Who knows though. I have his IEP meeting in a couple weeks. I'm not excited about it at all.

I'm just at my wits end with those 2. Owen is doing great in school though..

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{ #weightwatchers Week 3}

Omg!! I don't think I have ever been this excited about a number on a scale girls! On Saturday when I weighed myself I was 205 even. I weighed myself again around midnight last night and I was 205.6. I decided that since I hadn't been to bed yet I would go ahead and just wait until morning to record the weight. I'm so glad I did! I am 204.6!! I can't believe it! I am so happy! I know that on TV people are always like "I couldnt believe I found something that works" but I really did! And all of this is without exercise as it's been way too cold in this part of the country lately to do anything but sit on the couch under a big blanket.

This week I went over my daily points a little bit each day but usually just by 1 or 2. I also tried really really hard not to snack on things I shouldn't. Of course I don't tell myself I can't have something because that defeats the purpose of weight watchers but I did make myself weigh the points. If I eat this now will I have enough for those chicken strips tonight. I chose to grab some strawberries or grapes instead.

Honestly girls if you're having trouble with losing weight I think you should try out weight watchers.

Check out my awesome dropping graph!!

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{Parenting: I'm doing it right!}

My kids have chores. Gaige takes out the garbage and is in charge of keeping his room clean. Owen has to help clean up the toy room and he does just random things around to help me. And Dawn has to do the dishes.

Dawn hates to do anything I want her to.

So she does it badly in the hopes that I'll get pissed off and send her to her room, then do it myself. I have yet to do this. If I have to send her to her room for not doing her chores, the chores just don't get done that day and she has more dishes to the next day. She hates that too.

This does not stop her from going ahead and doing the dishes badly. And when I say "badly" I mean, she ends up putting the dishes away with food still clearly on them. There have been times that I will go through almost an entire pile of plates trying to find a clean one. I just stack them back up in the sink for her to do again the next time she does the dishes. When I ask her what the deal is she says "I got them mostly clean." lol OK. True. But I don't want to use a dish or a fork with food still on it. That's disgusting. So I told her that since she was putting away the dishes still dirty, I am going to start putting her clothes away still dirty.

Of course, I can't let her wear dirty clothes. I just can't. Not only is that mean, it's gross. So at night when she goes to sleep I bring her hamper down and wash her clothes...and then put them back in the hamper like they haven't been touched lol.

I know, I'm a friggin' genius. She's pissed off already because she thinks she's having to wear dirty clothes to school. Which she's not, because I would never let her do that. But she's quickly learning the lesson. I'm hoping that eventually she gets to the point where there's no dirty dishes in my cupboards.

Will it work? I don't know. But damn it I'll try anything.

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{Throw Back Thursday}

I know that TBT is usually just a couple pictures, but I've been scanning old pictures into my laptop recently and I've got some good ones here.

Well, not really good, but they qualify for TBT lol.

And I posted on twitter (or facebook whichever one you are reading) that I should do a blog post showing my lack of a fashion sense growing up lol. And none of it can be blamed on the times, well, most of it can't. Most of the reason that I have bad pictures is because of my hair. I fell like what I wore wasn't half as bad as the shitty way my hair decided to behave when I was in middle school. I still have nightmares about it lol.

So here we go.

Above: That adorable baby in this pic, yep, that's me. I was probably 6-7mo here I think. I don't really know. The guy holding me is my great-grandpa (my moms grandpa). He passed when I was a kid. On his right is my grandmother (who passed about 5 years ago). To his left is my grandma (his daughter). There in the middle, that is my mother at 16. 

Above: That's me and my dad at my parents wedding. I was 16mo old. Love the white suit right?

Above: Oh what a day. I remember it kind of. I do remember being carried down the isle by my uncle Gary because I refused to walk in front of all those people lol. And I remember wearing my Punky Brewster shoes (which I wore everywhere). I was the flower girl obviously. I still have that dress. Well, my grandma does.

Above: Oh my gosh. I think I was..12 here? That's my brother there with me, Dustin. Do you see that curl happening with my hair right there? That was just the start. It got so much worse before it got better.

Above: My grandparents (in the pink), along with my 2 brothers (L: Caleb, R: Dustin), my sister (Miranda) and me at Niagra Falls (I don't know if it was the Canada or NY side). Do you see that? Oh my gosh. My hair got so frizzy and curly and crazy over night. It was awful. There was nothing anyone could do at the time but let it grow and hope that it would settle down at some point. What was craziest about it was that it didn't actually get curly all over. For the longest time it was curly to about my shoulders and then straight as a board the rest of the way to the middle of my back. No clue how in the hell that happened, but it did. Eventually my grandma went ahead and cut off the straight part though.

Above: Opryland in October of '95. Yep. See if my hair wasn't so messed up, I don't think I looked that bad. The jacket and the jeans (which you can't see here but were light blue and tight at the bottom..oh and you also can't see the Doc. Martins lol) were a part of the 90's. I had gotten to the point by then that I was putting half my hair up.

Above: Another trip. And more bad hair. *sigh*

Above: On our trip to California for my cousins Marine graduation, well, I think this was actually on the way home, we passed a camp ground with a Flintstones theme!! It was getting dark when we came up on it but they let us walk through anyway :). But check out that hair. The jeans...oh my god. And that wasn't a 90's fashion. I was a freshman in high school at that point. Horrible. Horrible. And to explain; the large black belt thing around my waist is a back brace. If you know me you know that I hurt my back really bad while on this trip and the doctor said I needed to wear the brace more than I didn't wear it. So that's what's up with that hideous thing.

Above: I don't know what I did with my hair for Disney Land that day (same trip as the picture before it), but it didn't look that awful lol.My sweat shirt though...hideous lol. And I believe I was wearing jean shorts. It wasn't pretty. We had a great time at Disney though ;)

Above: And then my junior year of HS I just changed. There aren't a ton of pictures of me from freshman to junior. None that I could find anyway. This was actually my HS graduation dinner. My grandma convinced me to get a perm to sort of tame the poodle puff that had become my hair. So I did. And it was a great decision! I only got one once or twice and as I got older it started getting straighter.

I think that's all the pictures I have right now of my hideous fashion. I didn't have any of me in those baggy pants and shirts that I wore constantly. And from 15 to 17 I only wore backstreet boys shirts. I'm not ashamed of those at all. I heart them ;).

Soon after this I got pregnant with Gaige. See what happens when an ugly girl gets pretty? She gets knocked up lol.

I ended up chopping my hair off and then letting it grow out and chopping it off again for years. It was a constant back and forth.

The one with the longer hair is right after I had Owen. Then I ended up chopping it off again. As you can see eventually my sense of style got better lol.

My hair has staid basically the same cut since then. You can see those on my fb lol.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that had an incredibly long awkward stage lol.

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{#weightwatchers Week 2}

Starting Weight: 207.6
Week 1: 206.6
Week 2: 206.0

So this week I learned that some things are not worth the points. Like that fish sandwich from McDonalds or the club I had from McDonald's. I should not have done that. I've also found that sometimes you need to just say no. I did really good the first week with not eating things I shouldn't. And then I got a serious craving for salt the other night. Mistake.

Anyway, so that was week 2. I'm ready for week 3. Let's see if I can catch back up on this!

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{She's a Clever One!}

So Dawn got grounded again. Yes, after just getting off punishment 24 hours prior to this incident..well not even 24 hours. I don't know what goes through this kids head when she is getting her stuff back. Does she think that "hey, I got my stuff back, I can start acting a fool again." *sigh*

What did she do this time? I got this e-mail from her teacher.

"Dawn had a really rough day today. She should be giving you a detention form. You can see evidence of work we were doing today that I sent home with her and on both the current event sheet (Facts/Questions/Opinions) and the big note card, she basically refused. She sat and talked with her partner. I split their seats up but honestly other students are distracted by her vocal refusals and even with modeling how to do it, AND giving a LOT of time to work in class, she refused to do it"

So basically it's the same thing as the last time. Refusing to do the work she is supposed to be doing because she flat out does not want to. Of course I didn't hear anything about this from her, I read the e-mail and then asked her about it. To which she said "It's just a 30 minute detention". o.o I don't even know what to do with this kid.

So she got her tablet, MP3 player, and her laptop taken from her again. I also took all of her apps from her tablet and she has to earn those back one by one now. *sigh* I don't know what to do with her!

That being said, she is a very clever little girl. She bought a cheap monster high camera last year or the year before with her birthday money. It eats batteries so she doesn't get on it too much anymore. Anyway- when I went up to check on her around 10pm tonight she was fast asleep. But her camera (which she is also grounded from) was laying down beside her bed.

Now, I'm one of those mothers that will check your shit. I don't care anyone says about it I think that the world went to shit when we gave our children a say so in how our home is ran. I'm not that kind of parent. When you live with me it's my way. And everything is mine to do with as I please. I haven't checked her camera since I taught her how to pull the pictures off after our trip to St. Louis last year. So I decided what is on it now.

I found lots of pictures of Erma lol. Including one 15min video of Dawn telling her she doesn't see any birdies out there and Erma continuing to look out a window lol.

But then I stumbled across a video she took of a movie that was playing on her laptop lol. I thought that was friggin' genius. Since her camera is usually dead, I don't worry about taking it out of her room when she's grounded. So she has been watching a My Little Pony movie on her camera because she's grounded from everything.

Sneaky. Sneaky. lol

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{A Vacation Dilemma!}

As the cold wind blows outside and my furnace struggles to keep us all from freezing to death, I am setting my focus on our summer vacation. Maybe thinking about the hot summer heat of Florida will keep my toes from getting frost bite *shudders*. So lets talk about that, while I pull my blanket a little closer around me.

We already booked our hotel in Florida for the middle of August. Originally I thought we were clear on where we would go while down there. But D through a wrench into my plans when he said "Disney is stupid, I'd rather go to Universal or Sea World". I've been to Sea World (thanks to my aunt and uncle) and I was not super impressed. Plus there is quite a bit of controversy over that place and the whales or something. I don't know. I just know I don't want to spend my money or time there. So I settled on Universal. But now as I'm planning this trip and trying to research it, I'm not so sure that's the right choice for our kids right now.

Universal seems to be geared more towards older kids and teens/adults. The rides (aside from some roller coasters and water rides) seem to be most 3D. That's not really the experience I'm looking for. If I'm going to pay that much to get in the park to begin with and stand in line all that time, I want a real ride. Something I can video and take pictures of. That can't happen on a 3D ride.

Disney I have experienced before. When I was 15 my grandparents took all 4 of us (and my great-grandmother) to Disney Land in California. I had an amazing time! We went on a ton of rides and met Mickey :). I loved it! And ever since I've been itching to go back, but I want to go to Disney World. We have wanted to take this trip since Gaige and Dawn were little, but we didn't have the money for a trip like that. Then I had Owen and I didn't want to waste money going on a trip like that with a baby when he wouldn't even remember it or know what was going on. Plus, like previous years, we just didn't have that kind of money. This year, we finally can afford something like that and all 3 kids are old enough to remember it and have as good of a time as I did.

D is unconvinced. So I'm going to throw some prices at him instead lol. For 5 tickets at Universal it'll be $634 (not including tax). That is for 2 parks (Universal & Island of Adventure) and the Express Pass (meaning we get to wait in a shorter line I guess lol) is $1,000 (not including tax). I don't think there will be enough to do there for the kids to justify that kind of money. Am I right? With Disney 5 tickets with Park Hopper Pass (meaning we can jump from park to park) it will be $680.56 (that's including tax). That's for 4 parks.

I don't know what's going to happen. I do know that the tickets need to be purchased a soon as it's warm out so we have them and we don't have to worry about it come August.

Ugh. I'm just gonna go on planning for Disney I think because that's the place we will have the most fun and D can deal with it lol. Right?

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{#WeightWatchers Week 1}

I don't actually weigh in until Monday morning, but I don't really expect a loss. It has taken me a minute to hit my stride with this whole weight watchers thing. It's different counting points and calories. But as long as I stick to it and measure and don't just guess (which is what I've had to do a few times), I should be OK. Right? Blah.

If you're thinking of getting a membership and you eat out a lot, it's still possible. When I went out to lunch with my sister yesterday she chose the restaurant, and naturally she's a stick so she doesn't worry about what's on the menu lol. Anyway- I checked out the salad side only. I got a beef taco salad. Luckily it came in a small taco shell bowl (which I did not eat) and was filled with hamburger, lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, and sour cream. I'm sure there were other veggies too but since veggies are a "free" food, I didn't pay much attention. I limited myself to 1 soda and did not get a refill (even though he asked 3 times). I was pretty proud of myself. Today when I went to Subway with Dawn I checked the points before I even went in the store. I got a veggie with a little mayo on 9 grain wheat bread and loaded up on the veggies. I did good!

I still went over my points though. Cause I couldn't help myself lol. But that's why they give you the regular daily points and then 49 extra points for when you want to splurge. I saved those for the weekend.

I really hope that this is something I can stick with and that I can lose weight with. I'm so tired of people calling me fat. Trying to be funny or not, it makes me feel like total shit and I don't want to deal with it anymore.

I'm also going to start walking (weather permitting) again. It's been so cold here but we took the dogs out today and it was enjoyable :) I worked up a sweat anyway. So that's good lol.

So yeah, check my Facebook or Twitter to see what happens with that.

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{Parenting a Girl is Hard!}

Someone should have warned me that parenting girls is effing hard!! For the last 10yrs I've been struggling with this girl. She has a ridiculous amount of attitude and sometimes I just can not deal with it. The little girl that you see in that picture is just one of her personalities. She can be so friggin sweet and then turn around and be this evil, vindictive, eye rolling...teenager in an 11 year olds body. I swear I've never met a kid like her. She literally has a different personality for every person she is around. Someone tell me she is just a normal tween and she is not going to be like this forever. This isn't going to continue into her teen years right?

Nevermind. I've met D's other daughter. I'm screwed 7 ways to Sunday. *sigh*

I just have to keep telling myself that she will be an adult eventually and she will be super sorry for the hell she put me through. Right? Blah.

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{Already Planning for Summer}

Yep that's me. The over planner. But then again we have been saying we could go on a big vacation next year for 3yrs. So I want this to be amazing! I already had a sort of dry run with our trip to St. Louis last summer. I know how much I can fit in the back of my car, what we need to take and what we can leave at home, and what worked and what didn't. Honestly, I'm shocked that we got as much as we did in my little Tuscon lol. But we made it there and back. Of course St. Louis is a 2hr trip and Florida is 18hrs but I think we'll make it :).

Oh yeah, we're totally going to Florida!! I already booked the hotel and everything. I'm so excited! I got on expedia (since I had such good luck with it last time) and searched for 3-4 star hotels near Disney since that's where we had initially planned on going when we talked about heading to Florida. I was going to stay on a Disney resort but honestly we weren't planning on staying a whole week or anything, so it was just not financially smart for us to do that. Anyway- I found The Blue Heron Beach Resort. It looks amazing from the pictures and the reviews are pretty much stellar. So I'm hoping it doesn't suck and it's not under construction like the hotel in St. Louis. Not that that hotel was horrible, I just wish I would have known it was under construction when I booked it. We got the family suite which is described on the site as "The one-bedroom Family Suite measures 885 square feet (including the balcony) and has a King bed in the master bedroom as well as a bunk bed off the corridor leading from the front door to the kitchen / living area.  This suite is ideal for two adults and two children.  There is also a queen-size sofa sleeper in the living room." Not just that but it also has a washer/dryer so I can wash clothes should I choose to do that before we leave. Which I might so that we're not transporting wet suits and such for 18hrs in the car. I'm also thinking I might pack some cereal or something so we can make breakfast and save a little money in that area at least. I don't know though we shall see about that.

I am just so excited! The kids are going to have such an amazing experience. None of them have been that far from home before. 

Now to figure out what to do with the dogs...

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{Happy New Year!!}

WELCOME 2014!!!

This year I am going to let go of past grudges. I'm going to live my life as drama free as possible. And I'm not going to care what others think of me (not that I do too much now ;) ).

I know that most people are posting about resolutions and goals for the coming year but let's face it, if I talk about them I'm not going to follow through with them. At least that seems to be my way. So I will just say that I have a couple goals in mind and I'm hoping yo accomplish at least one lol. I'm sure I will blog about them eventually but not while they're still new and I haven't hit my stride yet.

I know some people are posting about the past year too. I'm not doing that. I want to leave 2013 and all its crap right where it is. I want to start fresh this year. So be gone 2013 drama...time to kick rocks :).

So just because I'm not talking about my future plans doesn't mean I don't want to hear about yours. Did you make any resolutions this year? Do you think you'll actually stick to them? Lol Good luck those that did!

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