When you Wish Upon a Clock

We all know how gullible my little girls can be…..after all, they planted sesame seeds in hopes of growing cheeseburger trees, believed daddy got on the wrong plane in China and came home one week early by accident, and the list goes on……

Well, a certain teenager in our house convinced the little girls that when the time becomes 11:11, you can make a wish. It doesn’t matter if it’s am or pm.

It’s all I’ve heard for the past few days.

When is it 11:11? We have to make a wish.

Today while they were not so patiently waiting for someone to play Monopoly Jr. with them, they got the brilliant idea to go wait for the clock to change to 11:11 to make a wish.

It was only 2:04.

And they stood there watching the clock....2:05, 2:06, 2:07....you get the picture.

Yep, my kids are just so smart.

(you can thank Katie for this tidbit...)

The Joys of Car Rides

Think back to when you were a child and were riding in the car. What did you do?

Chances are you played the alphabet game or the license plate game, right?

Our little ones are no different. Except they cheat horribly!

I see an A, oh a B, and a C…….now I’m on Z!

Say what?

Maybe they are speed readers….

Today while driving into Atlanta, we were introduced to a new game.

The Rainbow Game.

Here’s how you play: you follow the order of the rainbow colors and find cars or signs with that color. First one to purple wins.

And somehow they always “saw” a purple car.

Yeah right.

But the funniest thing?

They wanted daddy to play too. After all, daddy is really good at the alphabet game.

But daddy is lousy at the rainbow game.

Could that be because he’s color blind?

Adventures at College....

Ah, just imagine…..away at school, no one to tell you what to do, and on your own schedule…......all at the ripe age of six.

Anna Grace went to college today. It was her reward for having a pretty good month behaving at school.

The plan was that I would meet Katie at the airport where she’d arrive via MARTA from Georgia State. She’d then take her car back to Atlanta for the weekend…

Alas, I ended up arriving at the airport before her and circled the terminal seven times before she showed up. Bet the rent-a-cops were wondering what I was doing…

Leaving the airport without being arrested was a good thing.

Got home, loaded the car, and off they went. Sniff…

Evidently the afternoon was spent hanging with roommates, playing Barbies, coloring, and watching movies.




Dinner was spent at an Atlanta “must visit” restaurant…..The Varsity.



Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Time for pretty princess games….move your piece around the board and collect jewelry. Guess who won?




Then get all snuggly warm in jammies and ready for bed. But got to skype Catlan first!



Not to be left out of the excitement….Alex and Abby have been home with me. Like that is not fun….ha!!

They’ve built a fort, played tag, and been to Burger King. Abs has stayed up WAY past her bedtime and watched lots of movies.

I am ever so thankful that my little ones have awesome and amazing older siblings!!!

Don’t you wish you had teens and little ones too?

My Redneck Life....

It’s 30 degrees outside. There is still snow on the ground. So what do we do?

Grill outside. Yep, we’re just that good.

Hey, it’s Georgia. We should be able to grill year round, right?

I should clarify that “I” did not grill but Dave did. I don’t set foot near a grill when it’s that cold.

Well, I don’t go near it when it’s warm either but that’s beside the point.

Tonight was a simple hamburger/hotdog/bratwurst kind of night.

But there must be some way to make it more complicated. After all, this is my house. Nothing is ever simple.

Take a hot dog,



add a chopstick,



and what do you get?



A redneck nekkid corndog.

Yep.

Welcome to my life.

The Valentine's Day that Wasn't

The time had arrived…..time to make valentine cards for all the friends (and enemies) in class before heading off for winter break. Time to have a party with sweet treats. Time to enjoy some down time from the fast paced world of school.

What could possibly interfere?

The dreaded “s” word.

Snow.

The threat of snow starting early in the morning today caused school to close last night. No party day. No valentine exchange. No nothing….

Our morning today started early (6:40am) since the shorter crowd did not get the memo about the snow day.

Why are we home, mom? Where is the snow? What about my party? Mom, there is no snow. Why are we home? Mom? Mom? MOM!!!

The morning came and went with nary a flurry.

Lovely. So glad we wasted almost an entire school day on a SNOW day with no snow. What good is a snow day if there is no snow? Tell me. I’d really like to know.

Finally…..early afternoon……a flake. And another, and another. The snow had arrived.

A whole three inches or so…but that’s okay. Snow is rare in the south.

Thankfully daddy spent his lunch time yesterday fighting the grocery store crowd for me. The crowd who believes if you don’t have milk, eggs, and bread when snow hits, you may die.

Daddy was on a quest for boots…..and came through!



The afternoon was spent outside, inside for hot chocolate, outside, inside for hot chocolate, outside, inside……do you sense a pattern here?




Ah, so pretty.




Tomorrow brings the weekend, a day full of ice and slush, and the start to our week long winter break.

Are you catching on yet? If tomorrow starts our winter break and we didn’t have school today for our parties, when is Valentine’s Day?

Well, if you live in our county in Georgia, your new Valentine’s Day will be February 22.

Good news for all those boyfriends or husbands who forgot, huh?

My Science Experiment

I am here to confess that I am a Diet Coke lover. I only have one a day….well, maybe two….but that’s it. I swear.

But I’ve come to find out that Diet Coke doesn’t love me.

A few years ago, I found I was disoriented, dizzy, “out to lunch”, and had lots of headaches. I finally realized it was the aspartame (Nutra Sweet) in the Diet Coke that was causing this. When I switched to regular (full strength!), all these symptoms went away. It was wild.

After a while though, I missed my old friend so switched back. I thought I’d be clever this time and outfox my Diet Coke. I started drinking Diet Coke with Splenda. It was a new product and rated to be much safer than aspartame.

Perhaps nine months have gone by since I made the switch. Maybe a year…I am not sure.

Ah, a year of bliss. I was in heaven.

But then strange things began to happen.

I noticed that my vision was blurry. It was only in one eye at a time and never the same one. Odd. I thought it was my contacts but when I took them out and wore glasses, nothing changed.

Hmmm.

I noticed other things too: breakouts on my face, headaches, foggy brain, and fatigue.

Hmmm.

I chalked it up to stress. After all, my life can be stressful.

I happened to mention to my principal about my weird eye thing….had to wear my glasses to school that day. First time in ten years. She immediately called in the school nurse who took my blood pressure.

Guess what? My blood pressure was elevated.

Another hmmmm.

The nurse said, “Well, it’s not like you’re stressed or anything, right?”

(insert tongue in cheek)

I know I’m stressed, don’t sleep extremely well at times, have not been exercising, and probably don’t eat the best (especially when life is really busy), but I had not expected this. Before running to the doctor, I thought I’d make a few life-style changes to see if that helped.

Well, two days ago, I got the brilliant idea to google Splenda.

Guess what I found? In some cases, people are super sensitive to this additive.

Guess what else? They display the same symptoms I have…including increased blood pressure. Toss in the headaches treated with ibuprofen, there is another blood pressure increase.

So, I kissed my old friend goodbye and will never return.

Forty-eight hours after being Splenda free, I had no vision issues at school today. None.

Kinda makes me wonder.

What about you?

Sweet, sweet bedtime......

I have a confession to make.

My kids are really weird.

Oh wait….I think I’ve admitted that before.

But who else has kids who would rather freeze at night to escape making their beds the next day?

Yep. Mine.

The little girls have decided that no matter the weather, they are sleeping ON TOP of their comforters with only a light fleece blanket to keep them warm. Thus you avoid having to make your bed the next day.

Huh. Who'd ever think of that?

I always thought bedtime was for being warm, cozy, and snuggled in your comforter.

Unless you live at my house and are flat out lazy.

Guess they were serious because last night when I went to check on them before going to bed, I found this……



Gee, someone is pretty bossy, don’t you think?