July 31, 2014

{Back in the Swing}

For the last 2 nights the boys have been up until at least 3am watching movies on their tablets. Last night I told them it was time to turn them off at about 11pm. I had Owen come down stairs because he didn't have sheets on his bed for some reason (the kid is always pulling them off). I set him up on the couch cause he wanted a snack before bed. I told him when he was done with his fruit bar that he needed to go to sleep. He said OK. I woke up at 130am to him in my room in his sleeping bag (that's where he usually sleeps)..with his tablet still on. So I took it. Told him it was time to go to sleep. Woke up again at 3am and he was back upstairs on his tablet again. Grrr!! Needless to say tablets will not be had today.

I've decided to start them on their school schedule as of tonight. In bed no later 930 and up no later than 8am. I have no desire to try to fight this whole transition in a couple weeks when they have to be up and dressed for school.

I don't expect this is going to be easy. Both boys are very much night owls (just like their mother). But I also know I don't want to constantly be late because they don't want to get up. That tended to happen a lot with Owen last year. I hate getting mad in the morning but it seemed like that was the only way I could get him moving. *sigh*

What kind of schedule do you have for your kids in the morning? Do they all get up at the same time? Do they have to be at school at the same time?

Owen has to be at school later than Gaige and Dawn. They got on the bus at 730 last year but he didnt have to be there until 820. It was nice and a pain in the ass all at the same time.

I'm really hoping to stay on a decent schedule this year. And I'm really hoping everything goes smoothly.

I guess we will see in a couple weeks.

July 28, 2014

{ #weightwatchers Update}

I know I haven't been updating lately. I'm sorry for that. I sort of fell off the wagon. I haven't been tracking and I haven't been going to the gym. I do still watch what I eat and try to remember that a little goes a long way when it comes to bad food.

When I weighed in right after Six Flags trip I 189.6 I think. So know that I can make it out of the 190s. Unfortunately my body doesn't like that idea and although I was on top of my eating I gained and am again at 192.4. Its kind of frustrating but I'm sticking with it.

When the kids go back to school I'm going to start going to the gym every day again. I kind of miss it.

So that's where I'm at. How is your weight loss going?

July 27, 2014

{Just the 2 of Us}

If you've been following me on any kind of social media for the last week then you are well aware of my adventures lately. If you haven't been following me then what are you doing with your life?? I kid! I kid! But here is where you can play catch up to the funness I've over the past week.

D and I decided to take a little trip with just us this summer. In 11yrs we've never been on a trip without at least one kid. Sure we've been kid free for a few days. When the older 2 were little we would ship them to grandparents houses and have date nights. Sometimes for 3-4 days at a time. But we never had the money to actually go away together. Until this summer. We decided that since we had the season passes already for Six Flags St. Louis that's where we would go. Except I wanted to stay 2 days. I was in no hurry to return home lol.

We ended up staying at the Holiday Inn across the street from Six Flags out of sheer convenience. If you want to read my review on the hotel you can see that here. We arrived long before we were able to actually check in at our hotel so we parked the bike (did I forget to mention that we took the motorcycle? We did) and took the hotel shuttle across the way to Six Flags. It saved us $25 in parking which was awesome.

We walked through the gates and headed right for Batman, but saw that it was down. I was kind of upset because it's my favorite ride. But we headed for the Joker instead. Waiting to get on (which wasn't a long wait because there was pretty much no one there lol) we noticed that the reason for Batman being down..


Yes, that is the ride stuck at the top and people walking down the stairs! As badly as I wanted to ride it, I took it as a sign that we shouldn't. And we continued on our quest of riding every big ride there. We did the boomerang, boss, american thunder, joker, ninja, screamin eagle, river king mine, superman (even though D has been avoiding it for years..he went on with me), pandemonium, colossus, log flume, and xcalibur. Those aren't all the rides there, but they're the ones we wanted to go on lol.

At about 3pm we headed back to the hotel to check in and get our room. From there it was the pool, which was decent, and food which was amazing. Then we slept.


The next morning we got up and headed toward some mall that D found online after searching "man mall" lol. It looked massive from the road but when we got in there it was no bigger than the mall we have. And to tell you the truth the clothes stores weren't really my "style". It was a lot of shit that looked super ghetto is what I'm getting at here lol. We did find a pretty good mini golf thing in there though. And we found a Cabella's which is the same thing as Bass Pro I guess. Except kind of way more awesome lol.

Black light mini golf at the mall.

 He snuck in there when I was getting a pic...Cabella's

 1 of the fish tanks they had at Cabella's. It's huge!

After we'd seen the whole mall we hit the road again and we ended up in Alton which has a haunted hotel that we wanted to tour and possibly stay at. Unfortunately they didn't answer their phones and we found out they only did tours on Saturdays. Dumb. We decided to head into Grafton instead and check out the Pere Marquette Travel Lodge.

The place is amazing! Its huge and old and right up our alley :). We took the bike out on all the twisty roads that the park (where the lodge is built) and explored as much as we could.

 Our room.

 The King

The Queen



We had lunch in Grafton (yum!) and then dinner at the hotel (less than good). 

When we were about to go to bed D went down to the lobby to get us some sodas and came back up telling me how the place is haunted! Of course I didn't believe him but it turns out that it's true! They do paranormal investigations every couple months..their next one being on Halloween!! We of course booked another night right then. I'm so excited to go back.

Speaking of going back, we are going to take the kids back for a week next summer I think. You can rent a cabin and stay there which I think would be best with kids. They can ride their bikes and explore and its only 45min from six flags. I can't wait to see their reaction to the place :).

The next morning we left and headed for home. We stopped off in Hannibal again and did the Tom Sawyer cave tour. Not as good as meremac but enjoyable. We also ate at the restaurant there that was totally under water when we were there with the kids so we will have to watch the flood water next summer.

We also went through Louisiana, Mo. Not much to see but we did discover the water tank house. So weird lol. D tried to get me to move there but I don't think I could handle a town that small lol.

I have to say this is one of the best trips I've ever been on as an adult. I can't wait to do another one next summer.

July 17, 2014

{Time to Let Go}

I have been going back and forth on weather or not to write this entry. At first I wanted to vent, and I published a post doing just that. But I soon deleted it thinking that maybe venting wasn't the best way to go about this post. So I gave myself a week to cool off and here I am, back at it.

If you have seen my twitter or facebook feeds for the last week or so, you should know that there was quite the change in our house recently. After just 4 months of being under our roof, Cassie decided that it was best for her to live with her mother again. The reasons should shock you, they didn't shock me at all.

When we left her home over night for our trip, we told her that we wanted her to make sure she let the dogs out at regular times during the day. They're potty trained but they can't hold it all day and into the night. We also told her we wanted the dishes done and the house cleaned (first floor only). Both of those things were her regular chores anyway. So we were basically just reminding her that those needed to be done. According to her, she could handle it. I doubted it.

The plan was for her to go to her friends house up the road on Tuesday night so she wouldn't have to be home alone. She was supposed to go to volleyball Wed and that was it.

Clearly that was not what she did. When we got up on Thursday morning I realized that the clothes I'd left on the floor in the living room (clean, folded, just forgot to put them in the basket before we walked out the door) smelled like dog pee. So that means she did not let the dogs out like she was supposed to. They clearly peed all over the laundry. The bathroom hadn't been cleaned either (which is the only room that actually needed it since I went over the whole house before we left and cleaned lol).

When I brought these 2 things up she got pissy with me. She went and rinsed out the bathtub (which as mothers we know is only half of cleaning the bathroom lol) and then started with the crocodile tears because we didn't appreciate her efforts. I simply said, "You are 17 years old, we should not have to remind you to do anything and we should come home to your chores being done the same way they would have been if I was standing there watching you do it." I can't count the amount of times I was left home alone over night and my grandmother never came home to a dirty house. In fact, the dishes were usually done and the laundry was almost always going if not done. So I know at her age, she is more than old enough to do the minimum of her chores.

Anyway- she called her mom and said she wanted to come back home, then tells us that she's going to stay until after her volleyball camps were done and then she would go back. We told her no. We weren't feeding her and running her all over hell and back for volleyball just for her to be pissy with everybody and leave at the end of the summer. We told her if she was going she needed to go that day. So she did.

After going through her phone, it turns out that she was using her friend Jades facebook to message a guy she claimed she didn't even want to be with but had been talking marriage to less than a couple months before that. She had snap chat which she wasn't supposed to have and she had been smoking pot with 2 different friends on the 4th of July when she was supposed to be with her friend that lives up the road. Nice right?

To tell you the truth, there is a calm in the house since she's gone. I'm not constantly wondering if she lying to me or what she's going to attempt to get by with next. No one is waiting for the other shoe to drop and for her to fly off the handle and decide to leave and stop talking to us.

I don't feel bad about the fact that we now have no contact with her what so ever either. She attempted to bad mouth us to Tristen and he was hearing none of it.

In reality she will call again in a few months, because she can only be in one place so long before she uses up all her get out of jail free cards and has to move on to someone else. I'm kind of glad to say though that we won't be the ones taking her in this time. This is the 2nd time she has run out on us and the 3rd time she has stopped talking to us (but she can definitely find a way to talk to her little douche bag boyfriends when she's grounded from them).

Oh. I forgot to mention that this whole thing came after she realized the GUY she was wanting to hook up with was coming back from his family trip to Florida that Sunday and she couldn't handle not being around him. Keep in mind that this is NOT the guy she was grounded from talking to while at our house. This is a different guy. Had she not been talking to him, she would probably have been just fine. *eye roll*

So there you have it. We have washed our hands. We tried everything we could to help her out and she shit on us every step of the way.

In the end I think we will just have to keep telling ourselves that Karma always finds its target.

July 12, 2014

{Road Tripping '14- Six Flags}

D and I had both not been here for years so we were just as excited to go as the kids were.
In route we stopped along the side of the road and picked up a turtle. Because D can not let a turtle just be on the side of the road and get run over.
When we arrived at the park we let the turtle out at a small pond on the grounds. It was a good choice. D wanted to keep it and let it stay in the car while we were in the park...yeah..no. So that happened first lol.
We were in the gates and waiting when they opened the park at 1030am. We pretty much had our pick of the rides at that point. The first one we walked to was The Boss. Owen couldn't go on it (I wouldn't have wanted him to anyway) and neither did Dawn. So they waited with the employee while D, Gaige, and I went. I could not believe that Gaige went with us! It was so crazy!! Gaige and I were both screaming like babies when it would go down a hill lol. D was loving every minute though lol. And after that it was Thunder River (everyone went on that) to get soaked! We would later end up riding that a 2nd time.
We also went on Pandemonium, some mine one, and D & I went on Batman alone.
We hung out for a while in the kid part of the park for Owen and he loved it :). He said his favorite part of the whole trip was the castle play place lol.
Owen also went on his first coaster! He went on Pandamonium with us :).
We all (minus Dawn) went on the Log Flume but Gaige, Owen, and D went on 2 more times. Then Gaige went again alone by himself. I think its safe to say that he liked this one the best lol.
About 2hrs in we hit a snag when my blood sugar dropped and I almost passed out. We got some food in me and some water then headed to an arcade to sit in the air conditioning. I laid on the floor in a corner for about 30min while Dave and the kids played games. I felt better after that. I made sure to keep drinking water and that's when we went on Thunder River again so that we could all cool off. Not that it was a hot day, the weather was pretty much perfect.
The lines didn't start getting long until about 6pm when the water park closed. We stood in line for an HOUR for the Scooby Doo ride. Blah.
We ended the day at the kids area again and Owen went on the little train there. Oh! We took the big train around the park too.
But here are the pics I took. :)












July 11, 2014

{Road Trippin '14- Hannibal Mo}

Some of my favorite memories of childhood vacations are those where we stopped at random places along the way and had a mini adventure. So when D suggested taking the scenic route to Six Flags I was on board! We stopped in Hannibal Missouri at the little Mark Twain "town". I say town loosely because its really just 1 street of older buildings and you can take a tour on a trolley.
I didn't take too many pictures. But here are the ones I did take :)












In all the time spent here was a good time. And a good way to kill a couple hours.
A word of warning though the lady who does the museum (you pay to walk through) doesn't know how to work the register. So pay attention to how much you're total should be or she will charge double.

July 7, 2014

{Road Trippin '14- Snack Bag Goodies}

Like the cooler, last year I took a small bag of snacks for the kids. I knew they would be getting hungry about half way there and to avoid stopping at McDonalds, I thought snacks would be a good idea.

So this time is no different. Not to mention I know my kids well enough to know that they'll be hungry when we're in the hotel room late at night too.

This time I'm borrowing a bag from Cassie and filling it with goodies. I bought..

-Cheese Itz (that I divided into baggies so I wouldn't have another box to deal with)
-Gold Fish (did the same thing with these)
-BBQ Chips
-Lays Stax in Sour Cream & Onion and Original
-Fruit snacks
-Brownies with candies on the top
-Oatmeal Cream Pies

And for breakfast I packed small boxes of cereal. The hotel offers a free one but I'd rather not deal with that. Plus, you never really know what's going to be available. And Owen is such a picky eater.

We are taking small bottle of milk, like the kind you can get a gas station, for the cereal.

I'm pretty proud of myself honestly. I got pretty much everything for $1 at either Dollar General, Dollar Tree, or Deals.

July 6, 2014

{Road Trippin Series '14 - Kids Bags}

The kids bags are already packed as of today and ready to be in the car (aside from tooth brushes/daily stuff). I've got 1 bag for Dawn and 1 for the boys. I wanted them to each have their own but Gaiges was big enough for both boys.

Dawn is taking
- 1 pair of jeans/ tshirt
- 1 black and purple outfit (for the park
- PJs
- Bathing Suit
- Socks
- Underwear/ bra

Plus I am giving her a small make up bag to store her toiletries in. This will contain things like..
-toothbrush/ paste
-Deodorant
-razor
-body wash
Gaige is taking
- Jeans/ tshirt
- Flag Tank top (for the park. He wants to wear trunks too)
- Trunks
- Socks
- Underwear

I'm just going to give him and Owen a  plastic bag to carry their tooth stuff and all that jazz.

Owen is taking
- short/ T-shirt (for park)
- Turtle PJs
- Trunks
- Socks
- Underwear

So there we have it. The kids bags!

July 4, 2014

{Road Trippin '14- What's in the Cooler? UPDATED}

Last year when I posted this I was not doing a very good job of planning it out lol. I wanted to have things everyone would eat and for some reason I just didn't pack very healthy things. So this year I'm going to attempt to not pack so much crap. But at the same time bring things that even D will eat lol.

As I made out my shopping list this trip I took into consideration that we'd only be gone one day and that we couldn't take food with us into the park (which I think is stupid but whatever). I also took into account the fact that I'm not trying to gain 10lb on this trip. I'll already have to watch it when we're at the park because we'll eat there at least once.

So I went for fruits for me (and the kids also because they're little fruit eaters). This isn't too much a stretch from our regular list. I always buy strawberries and oranges.. Which is what I'll be bringing this time as well. I'll divide them into smaller baggies and that way they can be floating around in the cooler and the kids can just reach back and get whatever they want.

I'll also be bringing Capri Sun's, Soda (mainly for D), and Kool-aid Bottles. For me I think I'll bring my large 64oz jug and just fill it up with ice water before we leave. That way I have something cold and I'm not drinking crap I shouldn't be.


After D and I went grocery shopping I thought I should update my blog because I didn't get a lot of what I wanted to and got different things instead.

I got..
-Kool aid bottle
-Capri Suns
-Gatoraids
-2 small bottles of milk
-Strawberries (which are cut up and put into baggies for easy access)
-Cutie oranges
-Danimals yogurt bottles (mainly for Owen the other kids are not fans)
-Lunchables (the regular kind because they were $10/10 at Deals)
-Soda (which haven't been purchased yet because if they're in the house, D & Cassie will drink them all)

I was going to bring stuff for sandwiches but then I decided I had enough stuff and didn't want to bother with it lol.

So there you have it. The updated version of what's going in my cooler.

July 2, 2014

{Road Trippin '14- Park Bag}

We all know how much I love a big bag. The last 2 I've purchased have been large and I can basically carry anything and everything in them. Being a mom, I kind of have to make sure that when my kids need something, I have it. So I like to carry a nice big bag and not to have to worry about missing something.
But anyone who has been to an amusement park knows that you don't want to carry around a massive bag and have to worry about that being stolen and when you're hot, at least for me, I don't want to have to hold anything and get sweaty lol.
So I went on the hunt for a smaller, cross body, bag. Which is foreign to me honestly but I knew pretty much what I wanted. And after searching at Target, Ross, Kmart, and Walmart, I finally found one on a random trip to Ross (again).
Front

Inside flap

Back

Back pocket

Top flap pocket

Main pocket with zip compartment and phone pocket.

Its a bright coral colored, Jessica Simpson. I paid $18!! Which seems like a lot for a bag..but its so cute lol.
In this bag:
-First aid (bandaids, neo to go, ect.)
-Gum
-My phone
-My camera
-My glasses cases (so Gaige and I can take off our glasses if we need to and they won't get broke)
-Money/ID
-One of those portable chargers for my phone.
-baby wipes
-Small bottle of sun screen
 
I'm sure I'll think up something else lol. How I'm going to get everything in there I kind of don't know lol. But I will figure it out. Don't you guys just love this bag though? For real.

July 1, 2014

{Road Trippin '14- Entertainment}

Every parent knows that the most important thing to pack on a road trip with kids is not snacks or clothes but entertainment. If the kids are bored on a long road trip it makes for a shittacular time confined in the car.
Last time we took a trip, Gaige took his tablet and Dawn had her laptop, Owen had his Innotab. All was pretty quiet. This time though all 3 kids have tablets. I'm going to load a couple movies on to each one and at the hotel they'll be able to watch xfinity over WiFi.
On top of the tablets each kid will get to bring a small bag with things for them to do. Gaige will most likely take a couple magazines and his DS. Probably a notebook with some pens and such to write (which is what I used to bring on a long trip). Dawn will bring her rubber band bracelet loom and some paper/pens, most likely a book, and I'm sure she won't leave without her DS. Owen is bringing some of his turtles and a couple color books/crayons and his DS.
So everyone should be pretty well entertained on this 3hr drive.
I am pretty sure that I will end up getting an audible book. I can't read in the car...it makes me sick . And I've got my phone lol. Facebook, twitter, and Instagram will be my entertainment .
I'm also on the hunt for some bingo game cards to keep them entertained should they not want to play with what they brought.