My Birthday

Is tomorrow. I think that counts for a Whoo. Syd and Bec got back from Grand Bethel about noon. We didn't really expect them til about 3, but I guess Renee had an overnight shift tonight at work and needed to get SOME sleep, so they booked it home and then she turned back around to go to Stockton to grab some sleep. I took my camera with me EVERYWHERE today, and took NO pictures whatsoever. We started this morning by going to Hometown Buffet for breakfast, had a coupon for 2 free kids, so used that, then coming home spotted a garage sale. Well, they had a bucket of toys at said moving sale, so I offered 5 dollars for the bucket of toys, I mean, it's noon on SUNDAY, well, she didn't want to take 5 dollars, said she could get more on Craig's List for them. I asked Shabree if they were intact (I mean, I was taken aback, the woman was, how shall we say, RUDE!) She said she'd take 10 dollars for them, but not the bucket, she needed it for moving (ok, WHATEVER... heck though, the bucket was worth 4 or 5 bucks by itself, I'm sure.) So I said ok on 10 dollars, we bagged it all quickly since the girls had JUST gotten home and went home. There were actually quite a few GOOD toys in there, and indeed, were intact. We got a couple of Little People toys including a race track and a Noah's Ark (oh man, that Noah's Ark is CUTE!!!) So we're getting quite a good little collection of Little People toys that go together. There were even toys for Alex in there, though Sammi always bogarts the baby toys, little stinker.
For dinner, we had a bit of a buffet at Safeway. Safeway has the BEST lemon chicken, and I wanted Chinese food pretty badly, so that's where we went. We also got some sushi, macaroni salad, and Becca didn't want Chinese, so she got a sandwich... like I said, a buffet. LOL. We brought Syd's present to me with us, but I never got a chance to open it. Lord, Bec and Shabree cannot get along if their lives depended on it. Bec treats her like a little kid, and Shabree resents the hell out of it, can you blame her? But they both can't talk nicely to each other... really, Becca doesn't speak nicely to anyone, she uses the same rude tone with everyone, including her dad and I. It gets rather irritating much of the time, and I TRY to be patient, but it's not easy.
Shabree... is having emotional issues lately. I'm really worried about her and Sydni, because Shabree has been talking about some things that are bothering her, and it's almost all sexual, though she doesn't even know what it MEANS... she just knows it's "Bad" and it really, really has her messed up, to the point where she can't think about anything else. She can't "get it out of my head" as she says. Syd has REALLY been acting out shoplifting from the store, taking money from Jerry's wallet to spend on the ice cream truck. We had to ask Syd about some of the stuff that was bothering Shabree, because it happened while Syd was around (with Syd's former friend Kristin, who does not come around, whom NO ONE wants to come around. I mean, she hasn't been around in MONTHS, so this stuff with Shabree, some of what's bothering her happened a year ago, maybe more). I told Shabree that I don't know how to help her, I've done what I could, and she can't seem to get over it, and I'm taking her to see a psychologist. She was bothered at first by the idea, but has warmed up to it. I just don't know what is UP with these girls. As far as I know, they haven't been harmed in any physical or sexual way, but they are both having anger issues, and some emotional issues, and I'm just at my wit's end with Syd's stealing. She told us that "it's a habit" to steal. I told her that if it was a habit, she'd darn well better BREAK that habit. I was SO mad. We still have to take her and the shoplifted candy back to the store. We... who am I kidding? I am SO leaving that one up to Jerry. UGH. It's almost depressing, the entire situation. Makes my stomach ache.

With that, I think I'll switch topics, but this blog is about what's going on in our family, better or worse... this is definitely the worse stuff.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow for my birthday. I wanted to go swimming, but Tuesday may actually be a better day to go, I don't know. Becca has school tomorrow, so we couldn't go until one or so, and the pool closes at 5 or 6 to the general public... 5. So yea, she's out after tomorrow, would probably be better to go on Tuesday when we can go when they open, and stay til they close. I'd LIKE to get my money's worth, though it's going to be 3 dollars even for Sammi, and she's TERRIFIED of the water!!! Sigh. Yea, would rather not take her, but no one to leave her with.

Jerry's birthday is in a week, I am wanting to buy him a bike so we can go bike riding as a family. They're pretty cheap at Walmart. I can also check the thrift stores, but I'd like him to have a new one. Shabree is going to use her birthday money to get a bike, Sammi probably will too. Every time we go NEAR the bikes, she starts whining "bike, bike!" She WANTS a bike really bad. And she has Shabree's old bike, but it's wobbly, and tips over way too easily, but she rides it pretty well all the same. Anyway, she wants a new bike BAD. So we'll use any and all birthday money towards getting her a new bike, which is only 39.50 at Walmart anyway. Plus a new helmet, which will probably be another 17, or 20 if I get the knee/elbow pads. We got a bike trailer for my bike using Alex's birthday money, which she loves riding in, but I know she still wants her own bike. Funny thing is, Alex doesn't like riding in the trailer, she squirms out of it. So even though it was HER money that bought it, she doesn't like it (for now... she will later though.) But at least I can take the two of them to the park and not have to drive. It makes me nervous though with the wider wheel base, but it was worth getting all the same. I may even go do some shopping using it, we'll see. I'd like to be able to save gas, it's stayed pretty stable lately, but even 2.89 a gallon is plenty not to be trying to save money on gas wherever possible.

Well, I don't really have any "new" pictures... can't find the ones Becca took going to Grand Bethel, not that she took that many to begin with, but I'll try to upload them once I find them, and hopefully some from my birthday tomorrow. I need to bake a cake, and I will probably want pics from that!

Awards Assembly

Syd got an award for good attendance

Shabree got an award for good citizenship

Field trip with Syd on Friday to the State Capitol

This is the group of kids I had for the field trip. I can't remember ANY of their names! I had a girl, too, but she never did stay with us.

The "Super Secret" exit... lol, the emergency stairs. Syd took this picture from the bottom looking up.

I took this picture "just because." I thought it was cool, and I liked the lettering.

We were sitting listening to the tour guide explain the difference between the committees.

The State Capitol of California

Well, the same day as Santa Cruz, there was a field trip to the California State Capitol, which Syd asked me to go with her on. I thought it would be fun, so I signed up, then forgot to tell Jerry about it. Oops. He found out when the teacher sent home a note having HIM signed up. I think Syd straightened it out though, because by the day of the field trip, she had me down as coming. Every once in awhile, I'm okay with leaving Sammi and Alex to do something with one of the older kids. I actually have been on a couple of field trips this year, one with Shabree, and this one with Syd. Jerry and I like to take turns going, but I've been hogging the opportunities since I couldn't go on some when Alex was little-little (like she's SO big now, lol, ha.) We had a really good time on this field trip, though I MUST say, the Colorado state capitol is SO much cooler than California's, with its gold dome that sparkles in the sun (God, how much like Stephanie Meyer do I SOUND? Yikes! LOL!) But it was fun all the same. We got a couple of mementos, though Syd actually got a little poster of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" and I got a sticker of the state capitol for my scrapbook. Also, Syd's teacher gave me a post card that Syd kind of mangled getting home, that I thought "Oooh, that can go in the scrapbook TOO! COOL!" So I was grateful. The post card was her thank you note. Isn't that sweet? We ate lunch out on the grass (and stupidly enough, was once again wishing for Denver, with the zoo so close to the state capitol! Ugh for home sickness!) I ended up telling Syd that we MUST go to the State Capitol next time we're in Colorado, because it's just SO cool. Then I thought, hey, I want to go see ALL the state capitols! I digress. Lunch was good, I brought mine, Syd got hers from the cafeteria. We went across the street to See's Candy, which evidently we were NOT supposed to do, so a bunch of kids put up a real big fuss about it. Like "oooh, you're going to get in SO much trouble." I told them ALL it was fine, and I was right. I just told the teacher, I hadn't known, I apologize, and she told Syd it was in the past, nothing to be done about it now, which was absolutely right. So no biggie, next time though, I'll KNOW. LOL. Next time, I bring something for all the kids in the class. I had some gum, and all the kids wanted some, and I just basically ran out (I got down to 4 pieces and said no more!)
So we left around 12 and got back to the school by 12:30, and I took Syd and Shabree home, hoping to leave by 1 at the latest, but it didn't happen that way at all. Which I believe I told in the last entry, so will let that one go. Syd and I had a good time visiting the state capitol, though I believe Syd was BORED to death with the tour, lol... but I'm sure she still managed to learn SOMETHING about politics and voting. It probably won't mean much until she's older though. I know it didn't for me. I'll definitely have to scrap it though, to help retain the memory.

The stage, we had a really good view

Kim and Sydni

Kim and Syd before the concert

Shabree and I before the concert

Syd wearing Kim's glasses (before the concert)

Jane. Looking good in Kim's suit (much better than my old suit!)

My Kimmie

Sydni

Syd, Kim's sister Kylie, and Shabree

One of my best friends!

My Sydni

As Kim says, Me and two of my besties

Kim and Shabree

Arrrr Matey!

Kim and Sydni (can you tell this girl LOVES her Kimmie?)

I'm writing this on the PC, so probably no pictures, unless I have some on my card I can download, which I doubt. I suppose I can edit from the mac and add some pictures... heck, why not? I'm downloading pictures on the mac, we went to Santa Cruz with Kim and Jane on Friday to see The Fixx, which was pretty awesome fun. So she uploaded her pics to her MySpace account, and I'm going to download them from there so I'll have a copy too. I took enough pictures on my camera, but it's nice to have her perspective as well. Anyway, the computer is balking at having to create a folder on my very messy desktop, so it's not allowing me to do anything else, hence why I'm on the PC typing this instead. Sometimes it's nice to have two computers to work on... my mac is SOOO old.
Santa Cruz was a ton of fun. We weren't able to leave the house until about 1:45, though I tried to make it earlier. I'd forgotten to get food, so Jane was going to get it, but then Jerry volunteered, and I guess he didn't realize we were going to get an earlier start, so he waited til he went to pick up Bec to get us our food, and didn't get back until after we'd been here waiting for an hour. I have to admit, I was SO mad, and deeply disappointed. It all worked out though. We got there about 5, and played in the ocean for about an hour, hour and a half. The first Fixx concert was at 6:30, and we had decided to see the last show. Had we gotten there earlier, we might have gone to see both shows. However, they could be clearly heard from all over the place, so we enjoyed listening, even if we didn't really watch them. I went to see them to get some pictures during the 6:30 show while the light was still good, and my heart literally skipped a beat, the lead singer was SOOOOO cute! Oh man... Jane says he's gotten better looking with age (I said later, he's probably no longer doing drugs, which was SO typical in the 80s) Anyway, he was just gorgeous. So we decided to take our stuff back to the van, and just take some blankets to sit on for the concert, what we DIDN'T realize was how COLD it was going to be. We should have taken some more blankets to cuddle up in and stay warm. So after we put our towels down, we went on the boardwalk and got a little food with some coupons we got when we parked. We got corn dogs, and funnel cake, and Kim got deep friend twinkies which I didn't care much for, but I got mine kind of cold. The second concert began at 8:30, but I'd thought it began at 8, so we rushed back to sit on our towels, and waited, while Shabree complained about the cold. After the concert started, I dragged her onto my lap and cuddled with her while I moved to the music. I really enjoyed that part, cuddling my Breezy baby. I hope she remembers that when she gets older (but I plan to scrap it, so hopefully that'll help her remember.) The concert itself was really good. I didn't recognize all the songs, but they were all really good. I would have liked it a little better if they'd seemed more into it... I guess we're all getting older! It was still a good concert though, I have NO complaints, especially since I got to cuddle Shabree (can you tell that was my favorite part?) Kim cuddled Sydni, so she wasn't left out. After the concert, Jane got in line to get a picture with the lead singer, but Kim and I didn't want to wait out in the cold. Jane said we could go wait in the car, but we decided to hit the gift shops instead. They had a LOT of junk, but I found some REALLY cute little notepad holders with names on them, and I'm such a sucker for that kind of thing, and they were just SO pretty. I had to have one. They were 12.99, and I'd spent most of my money on food, so I was short about 6 dollars, but I borrowed it from Kim and gave it back when we got back to the van. I'd only taken 20 dollars with me when we went back to the van so I couldn't spend all my money (which turned out to be a wise decision.) Once we got back to the van, Jane wasn't far behind, and she'd gotten her picture with the lead singer. She told us he was very warm.
I had Jane drive back to Kim's which was scary at times, especially coming through the sharp turns. When we got to Kim's, I took over. I wished I'd taken a nap in the car though, because I was SO tired. I did all right getting us home, but I was pretty much on auto pilot the entire way. But we arrived safe and sound.
Last night, Jane watched the kids for us while we went to the movies. We had a nice little date night. I took the camera, but I never remember to take pictures when it's just the two of us.
Today we made Jerry dinner... since we hadn't gotten up til noon and hadn't had breakfast, we made breakfast for dinner. It was quite yummy. Then we gave Jerry his Father's Day present, which was a little 6 in 1 tool, though I called it a toy. Shabree wrapped it for him. After that, we tried unsuccessfully to take another tooth out of Shabree's mouth, it's been wiggling for two weeks now, but she was too anxious about it. Speaking of anxious, she cried for a couple of hours last night when we were on our date. She kept looking at a picture of her and I and it just made her cry because I/we weren't there. Poor thing. She's been quite clingy this past week. We're not sure why, but maybe it's because we've had house guests for the past couple of weeks, and the whole routine is disrupted.
This is their last week of school for this year. We're probably going to home school next year, though Shabree is torn whether or not she wants to do that. We've told her it's up to her.
The mac is just driving me crazy! I just try to do too much with it though.
Jerry got Bride Wars from Redbox today, so we watched that tonight. Cute. I should get to bed soon though. I just remembered I needed to finish this entry up.
Okay, some of these pictures will be ones I snagged from Kim's MySpace page, which means she took them. So far, they're ALL from her camera, lol. I just need to pull some from the mac, and it's giving me fits. I will though, might just take some time. I guess I should restart the mac or something.

Sammi's been sick. Like throwing up, listless, clingy sick. I think she's probably over it now, but I've got her down for a nap, because she's just fussy, for lack of a better word (I mean, can you really say a 2 year old is fussy?)

So Jane is coming to stay with us again, 2 weeks. It's a long story, but it was either that, or Steve go to jail. So yea.

Mom went home yesterday, we had a good visit while she was here. I guess a lot of the pressure was off, because she stayed at a hotel while she was here. She would come around noon, and leave around 8 each day. We went to John's on Monday, the night before she left, had a good time there. We went to the Roseville one. I think we like that one better than Stockton. It's a busier location, so they tend to have fresher pizza, and the games are different, the little kids play area definitely seems better. And this time, the prizes were better, so I got a little set of playing cards for my purse. Becca got 1000 tickets from one machine, she won the top prize, lucky her. And the next time we go, we'll get 65 tokens, because of a special they were offering that mom got us. I'm sure we'll think of her when we spend those. I am kind of hoping to go this month because we have a coupon for 115 tokens and 2 rides for 5 dollars. But we're going to have to budget that one out.

I have been job hunting again, but no call backs on anything I put out there, darn it. I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at least Alex could be weaned, if the need arises. I don't HAVE to nurse her anymore, it's just nice to be able to. The only thing is, and this is what makes me sick to my stomach, the jobs are only paying 10-14 dollars an hour, most are around 12. When I started working for Apple TEN years ago, I made 12 dollars an hour. By the time I left, I was making 17. Can we say WAH? Oh well, as someone wise pointed out to me, I got time with my family these past few years, time that nothing can take away from me. And, I believe I'm ready to go back to work. I just have to get over my fear of the interview process and not screw that up. I have got to make myself SHINE. I am going to re-do my resume yet again, so hopefully it'll catch people's eye better. I guess it's a process, and I haven't been in the game in a long time. I just need to focus on what's good, what I can do, instead of what's bad and what I can't do.
I've got to come up with something good for Father's Day... and he did so good, how can I compete with that? It's not like he needs anything... except maybe a bike. LOL. I guess I'll ask him what he wants. Though I did have a thought for a scrapbook...
And the next round of birthdays is coming up too... Mine, Jerry's and Breezy's. Jerry's going to be 40!! Only one more year for me. UGH!!!! Shabree will be 7. Time... well, you know. That means we've been married 8 years! And I'm just as much in love with him now as I was when I married him. I'm a lucky woman.
Well, I'd better go. No pictures, because I simply don't have any. I haven't been taking pictures, I guess I should.
I'm going to go read a book. I need to get Alex out of here, before she destroys something.

Sammi wearing a pull up on her head

It's been, as the title says, crazy around here. My mom has come for a visit, and I had jury duty at the beginning of the week. I still don't have a lot of time, but wanted to get SOME pictures uploaded. I haven't been able to take many pictures of Alex because we had to dilate her eyes, and the flash could have damaged her eyes. We couldn't take her out in the sun because it would have damaged her eyes, and it was tough getting her into the office because she kept taking off the sunglasses I bought her, and she was so MAD at me for covering her eyes with my hands. However, the eye doctor could find nothing wrong with the nerve behind the eye and everything looks good from that end. Now, Alex may still develop a lazy eye (and based upon the fact that my mom and I both had that issue as children, I believe it a strong possibility). However, if she does, then it can be corrected with surgery. The Nystagmus she can learn to live with and her brain will compensate for the movement. She may be a tad more farsighted than we first thought. I guess the question now is, do we take her to a neurologist or not? I'm going to discuss that one with her doctor(s).