goals

so i planned ahead... i wanted to paint the living room area last night that was my goal to get that started. i figured since i was going to be doing it alone, it'd be best to do it while the kids were sleeping... so i did my best to keep the kids up and they had no naps so they would go to bed earlier so i could have more time to paint. well, it was a success! daniel was a little trooper and made it till 7 when he finally passed out eating. so i began moving stuff away from the walls, getting everything prepared, while kathryn was constantly asking me what i was doing. it was cute tho, i'd tell her, i have to move the books off the bookcase so i can move the bookcase away from the wall, and she'd say "oh, ok. tan i help?" so she helped. oh, it's nice having her be at that age where she can ACTUALLY help instead of being in the way. i knew john wouldn't get home till about 8, and since i needed to get a paint roller stick and a drop cloth from MIL's i hoped i would start painting by 9. well, john didn't get home till 9 and i didn't get back from MIL's til about 9:40. so i was a bit behind, but oh well. i painted from 9:50 till 1:20am and i was done for the night. i had all the major walls painted except for the trim work and the very top that i couldn't reach.

the color is... a bit darker than i was aiming for, but that's only when it's dark outside. during the day it's great. so oh well, note to self in the future, pick a shade lighter than what you want, it seems to always turn out darker... but it is GREEN my very favorite color. and i am going to finish the trim work tonight. the rest of the house will wait until...we can afford it? lol.

kathryn has been doing great. she went all day today without any pain medicine, and she is eating pretty regularly, with the exception of chips and pretzels, they seem to be extra crunchy. i finally got a good look at her throat and it seems like the sores are healing, although i can't tell if the scabs have fallen off or not. it's day 8 and i think she will be able to eat normally for Christmas. yay for that!

oh, and we got our flex-pay reimbursement check today! although it doesn't do us much good until monday, but it's nice to know it came in. now we can wait for check #2, and we'll be much better.

pictures to come with the new paint. i have goals to finish!

venting

i begin to lose patience when i am hungry and it only gets worse the longer i wait...

so it's lunch time, and we don't have any clean bowls for the kids to use because they are all dirty...my fault, so i need to do the dishes...

i fix them some leftover jambalaya in the smallest storage containers i could find, and Dan has peaches as well... i stick dan in his high chair, kathryn gets in her seat, i get them something to drink so i can do the dishes while they are eating with no interruptions...

oh, did i mention i hadn't had any breakfast and i'm getting hungry, but i know if i don't take the opportunity to do the dishes when the kids are occupied and daniel is contained, it will take forever to do them (too much help from kiddos, constant interruptions, etc) so i sacrifice eating right away, to get the dishes done. oh the things mom's have to do...

i also put a show on for them so they would stay occupied... well, i got the dishes almost done when i was hearing daniel throw his bowl and spoon on the floor, so i go clean him up and let him get down, quickly go back to doing the dishes so i can finish...kathryn wants to watch Word World on the PC, i tell her to go click it (the PBS kids site was already up, and in the right spot, she just had to click a character which she does all the time) she starts pitching a fit about how i HAVE to help her...so i go turn it on, come back...just a few more dishes... and done, i put soap in, close it, and turn it on...yay, clean dishes coming soon. and i am super hungry!

daniel is whining at my feet and following me around the kitchen as i pull out the last of the pulled pork, heat it up in the microwave, and proceed to make a sandwich...all the while dan is trying to push me away from the counter to pay attention to him..."it's mommy's turn to eat now daniel, i didn't get to eat while you and kathryn ate, mommy was doing the dishes...so now i need to eat, please let me sit down and eat" well, i get my sandwich together, get some water and sit...ahhh, so nice to sit... i take a bite and daniel is "unh unh" trying to climb onto my chair, saying "bie bie" he wants a bite of my sandwich... i give him a bite, he runs off kathryn comes in, "mommy mommy i wan watch elmo songs" so i take another bite, get up to change shows and see daniel running toward my chair, i turned and told him "don't you dare daniel, that is mommy's sandwich you leave it alone!" and hurried up switched the disk, and turn around to see daniel walking toward me with what appeared to be the sandwich in one hand... i said "NO DANIELLLLL" as i rushed toward him to realize he only had one slice of bread...the rest with all the pulled pork was mangled on the floor....the dirty floor... UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M FREAKIN HUNGRY AND YOU GO AND RUIN MY LUNCH YOU LITTLE MUNCHKIN!!!

i cannot tell you... i felt like... ugh, my hot yummy lunch was gone... now i had to take more time to figure out what i was going to do for lunch...we have nothing quick...except sweet stuff (candy, cookies) why do our kids have to drive us flippin nuts... why can't i just sit and eat in peace and not get up until i finish ::tears:: it's just not fair. daddy gets to do it all the time...i just want one meal where i can eat it HOT... i guess i'll have to go lock myself in a room for that to happen. it shouldn't be this way.

ok, i'm done, sorry i had to get that off my chest.

a new color, lots of bows

yesterday - (i didn't get a chance to post)

so one of my goals was to finish my bows, and i did most of them, so i'm calling it good. i took pictures, so i'm including alot of them.

MY BOWS:

all of my big bows

all of my little bows

the bows with tails in better light

JENNI'S BOWS:
big bows
more big bows

LSU bows

Christmas bows

little bows

i also worked on finishing my christmas cards, which i didn't get to finish, but i will do that today.

and since Kathryn fell asleep at home with John while i had my "away" time, i left her with John, and took Daniel with me to my MIL's. i had volunteered to help her dye her hair, and she was ready to do it. since Daniel didn't have a nap all day and it was 7 when we got there...he had fallen asleep, which was fine with me. i had plans... i would color Corine's hair and she could help me color mine! so we had a hair coloring party. lol.

i didn't get to take a picture of it until this morning, so i don't have her in the picture, but we basically came out with the same hair color. which was my plan all along. (heheh) i thought i had told her in the past how much i loved her color, and asked her what it was called, she said dark auburn. well, i've never had luck getting the color to turn out right, so i went with medium auburn...PERFECT! hahah.

i'm busy so i'll be going.

i love my Kathryn

the joy of running out of eggs and milk is you have to get creative with breakfast. i almost always eat cereal for breakfast because i don't like to wait to eat... but the last 2 mornings, i've made banana pancakes. they are sooo good. and pretty quick and easy. and the kids gobble them up. even without syrup! this morning kathryn was watching me pour batter and she looked at me and said "thank you mommy for making me pancakes, i love them" aw, that's so sweet. and i gave her a big hug and told her thanks for letting me know she's thankful. then she told me she loves my bows i make, "they pretty" she says. it's so cute that she comes up with these compliments on her own! she is so cute. oh, and one more story, when we went into the ditch, and the cop came, he went back in his car after talking to us to do the paper work, and she walks over to him, peeks in his car and tells him "you not wearing you seatbelt! you need you seatbelt on, put you seatbelt on" haha, too funny, telling a cop to put his seatbelt on. he told her he will as soon as he gets ready to drive again. and he told her "thank you for reminding me to be safe, will you keep your family safe too for me?" "yes" i forgot to mention that little exchange. it made me smile.

something that struck me as funny, this morning since we weren't going to church, i put on christmas music. kathryn kept telling me she loved the jingle bell songs. so when a song would come on that wasn't jingle bells, she'd say "i don't like that one" but i would tell her "no, listen, this is what it's about", and she would say "oooh" and so the next song that came on was barum bum bum bum bum, which i knew as "neil diamond" although there are many versions...and i said that to kathryn, and she got really upset, and i said "no kathryn, this is a really good song" by that time the words to "little drummer boy" came on and so i try to start telling her what the song is about, but suddenly i get a choked up and i can't talk... so i try to clear up and tell her it's about a little drummer boy, but i can hardly finish before my voice cuts off and i start crying... yeah, kinda random, i know...and if i didn't know any better, this would make me wonder... but anyhow, i can't seem to pull myself together, so i go ahead and tell her what the song is about while i'm in tears... "it's about this drummer boy who sees the King is born, and he wants to give the baby Jesus a present, but he has no money, he's just a poor boy, so he goes and plays his drum for the baby Jesus and the baby Jesus smiles, see it's a good song! because we don't have to bring Jesus lots of presents, he just wants us to love Him, and follow Him and be good and nice to everyone!" imagine what kathryn must be thinking! my voice was getting that high pitch and tears were rolling...and she says "you like dat song mommy" "yes, i do sweetie" and she gives me a hug.

and so we started talking about Jesus and she ended with "i love Him!" it's neat to see them developing their reasoning skills. she seems to be doing pretty good this morning.

A successful saturday

so kathryn is on Day 5 and she is starting to want regular food again...pretzel sticks, gold fish, chicken nuggets, candy... you know, stuff that would hurt her throat. i've tried to get close to normal eating, but i'm not pushing our luck...but she wanted pickles, and she must've eaten 20 sliced pickles today...i didn't really think it would be bad, but looking back...it may have burned a bit. she was doing good right up until midnight when she started coughing and then crying and i could tell something wasn't right. i got her up and gave her some pain medicine as quick as i could, and she kept trying to cough like there was something to cough up...and i looked in her mouth, and i could see blood by her teeth...her scabs were starting to come off... i tried to convince her to spit the stuff out, but she kept trying to swallow it. she had something come out of her nose, maybe an adenoid scab and she spit up a small amount of blood but not much...from what i could see, the scabs at the top of her throat were still there, so looks like the next 2 days are going to be rough for her. i think we're going to have to stay home from church.

i bought paint! that makes it official! (i picked a color!) it really took me a while to decide on a color, and i'm wanting it to work. it was between two colors, and i can't wait to see what it looks like on the walls. i had a $50 gift card to Lowes that was given to us for the purpose of painting, and that was what i would use it for! i ended up getting 2 gallons to paint the living/breakfast/hall area...we'll have to see how far it goes. i also ran across a mis-tinted gallon that was clearanced for $5... valspar signature satin finish, which would work, and it was a nice green, not the right green, but i had imagined turning it to aqua and possibly painting the masterbath with it, well, she ran out of room in the can, so the color isn't exactly what i had in mind, but it's nice none the less, so i may stick with it and paint the craft room that color or i may dump some paint out and see if i can't get them to mess with it some more. either way, i got a $32 gallon of paint for $5! i couldn't pass it up. (the color worked)

i watched the Saints game at my in-laws, and man, that was a sad game. too bad they couldn't have a perfect season. i wonder if they'll make the superbowl. we'll have to see.

so i've been looking through some old pictures, and i came across quite a few that just made me smile. i'm working on a project to scan negatives from my printer to my pc, and my printer can do that! it is so completely awesome! i have begun to hate the thing, but now it has redeemed itself. maybe i'll keep it as a scanner and get a new printer, one that has cheaper ink!!!

this picture must be from 1995 or so, my sisters and me with my dad. from left to right: natalie, dad, me, jenn, steph. at my grandparents old house off of greenwell springs rd.

and i just love this one. what a classic of my dad with his brother Brent. they were pretty young! and handsome!

and i am working on those goals, getting closer...

getting stuff done

so i have a fanklin covey planner that i got 4 years ago and it seemed like i would go through spurts of using it and not, but ever since i started delivering the meals back in april i decided my purse wasnt big enough for my wallet and planner, so i transferred the important things from my wallet into my planner and i have it everywhere i go... but i still wasnt utilizing the main feature of the planner which was PLANNING...i have the daily planning pages that gives you 2 pages for each day so you can jot down anything that comes to your mind and there is even a time line you can fill in with when to do what...it's a fantastic system, and i decided back in october i would find the time to write in it and use it to refer to...write down future goals, what i need to do, what should have been done yesterday, etc...(this time i found to do this has nothing to do with the fact that my best friend left btw)

so it is my record of how successful i have been with getting stuff done. as of lately i also have been jotting down john's work schedule on the day itself, and this has been very helpful. i feel like i can really manage my time better when i can see what i should be doing... i happen to love the timeline feature and love to see how much i can fit into one day...hence the motivation to fill the slots! it also helps me realize how long a given task may take... there is even a part that has you write down goals for personal, social, family, physical, etc to get you to see how you can accomplish the within that week... for ex. working out at the gym...i would see it and make plans to do that one day that week...anyway, the system has lots of neat tools and tracker pages etc to really keep you on track and i love it.

so i got all my errands done today thanks to keeping track of them in my planner. and i had made a note a while back to find a sunny day that isnt too cold to finish transplanting my lettuce in my garden... and today was the perfect day, just after all that rain earlier in the week and last night, the ground was stilly soggy so the holes dug easily, and the plants came out with more roots since the soil was so wet... i was out there from about 3:30 til 5:45 when it got so dark i could barely see my hands... haha... that sounds like something my mom would do, garden at night... i guess i am her daughter! i was determined to finish, and i did with the exception of about 5 plants, but it looks so nice and it's done! now i just have to sit back and harvest whenever i please! i will never plant so many seeds at once again! it was too dark to get a picture, so all the pictures to come tomorrow... and the final count of lettuce plants i ended up with! (i gave about 30 to my MIL and i'm glad cuz i ran out of room) now i just need to go plant the ones at my MIL's!

so back to the planner, i have about 5 major things i want to get done by Christmas, so we'll have to see if i can get them all done...

1. finish bows i started on and try to sell them,

2. send out Christmas cards (which involves printing family picture, writing newsletter, printing newsletter, and addressing all the envelopes...which means gathering addresses)

3. finish scanning some pictures and burn to CDs

4. pick out a paint color and paint the living room with the gift card Aunt Mel and Uncle Danny gave us

5. clean the house good for Christmas when my family comes for lunch.

that's all folks

i'm glad i don't have cable

so i know that when your kid is not feeling well, you should give them what they want, but it just kills me to do this to an extent because it ruins the rules i've set up... now i want kathryn to be comfortable don't get me wrong, it's just, where do you draw the line? and when do you stop?

kathryn has been glued to the TV since her surgery...there have been a few "away" times, but the majority of the time has been spent in front of the TV. i'm not a stick-your-kids-in-front-of-a-movie-all-day kind of mom... so this has bugged me... but we don't have cable so tv for us is movies, and since all but 4 of her movies are scratched beyond playability, she doesn't usually watch tv. well, i knew she would want to be stuck in front of the tv, but i wasn't about to get stuck having to hear the stupid looney tunes cartoons over and over and over, so i asked Jamie if she would let us borrow some of their movies. she brought them over on monday, and kathryn has really taken to the Dora movies, she brought 3 Dora movies over. literally the last 2 days have been nothing but Dora and the occasional word world on pbskids.org... i at first thought Dora was a cute show. but after hearing it over and over and over... i realized, i can't stand some of the voices on there! and some of the phrases bug me too. i won't specify for the Dora lovers out there, but man am i glad we don't own these DVDs! and i am glad we don't have cable, because from watching the other cartoon shows for kids at friends houses, i realized there are a few shows that i can't stand... and since we don't have cable...there is no way for them to play in my house! whew! what's funny is that it isn't the repetitiveness that bothers me...stick almost any dreamworks movie in and play it all day, and i'll be reciting the lines and not minding at all... (we have over the hedge, madagascar, veggietales, and cinderella that play and i LOVE these movies no matter how many times i hear them) so i just kept thinking... what happens when they get older and they love a show that gets on my nerves! hopefully it won't be playing in the living room!

so at 1o:30 this morning i cut the Dora off, and decided no more Dora for the rest of the day. it was getting close to lunch time and i was asking kathryn what she wanted to eat while she kept mumbling over and over "i wa wa woh woh" which means "I want to watch Word World" but i had decided we weren't going to watch any show for a while. so she decides she wants to eat cereal for lunch...well, at this point (today she seemed totally herself, energy levels and all) i wasn't going to argue that cereal wasn't a lunch food, so i told her she had to wait till it got soggy, and i asked her if she still wanted it "yah" so i made it. "i nh wah cuol" ok, do you want oatmeal? "yah" "you sure?" "ya" so i made it, and took out rice for daniel to eat and warmed it up...suddenly, she wants the rice instead... i give her the rice, go to make daniel a sandwich and when i give it to him she doesn't want rice, she wants oatmeal... ok... whatever. daniel scarfs down his sandwich so i go to give him the rice, and kathryn wants it again..so i share it between the both of them till it's gone... then i pull the cereal over to see if daniel wants it, he does, so he eats all of kathryn's soggy cereal, and she wasn't touching her oatmeal, so i pull it over to see if Daniel wants some, and he ate some and kathryn finished some too... i just couldn't believe how much daniel ate!

so we ended up having a lot of fun. first we found all the balls and bean bag we could and we played toss it in the basket, then we took just the balls (a lot were golf balls) and i showed kathryn a game that my sisters and i used to play as kids all the time...rolling the golfballs back and forth to each other down the hall (we had a ton of golfballs growing up and we found interesting ways to have fun with them- i used to build pyramids!) it was so much fun, and it got me to thinking about back in the day when i was still a kid... anyway, i taught kathryn how to "roll" the ball by pushing it forward with your hand and we tried to see if we could hit the other golfballs that we already rolled...she had fun and she learned a bit of coordination, and maybe how to aim at a target... well daniel came along , and i showed him how to roll the balls too, and he had fun too, but it didn't last long after daniel joined...so i tickled that silly boy, and kathryn got in the way, so i tickled her too, and then i chased them around the house for some more tickling, and then we just started playing chase, daniel LOVES to be chased...i got a video of the boy, he is too hillarious the way screams when he sees you coming. so then i changed it up with kathryn and she started chasing me, and i ran ahead to "hide" to show her the fun of jumping out and saying "boo". i made her jump when she came where i was hiding...but she loved it...i tried to explain how you do it, you find a place to sit quiet and wait for the other person to come by you, and you jump out and yell boo...well, she didn't quite get it, but it was still fun. we played that until i was pooped out from all the running, then we sat and put a puzzle together, but when daniel comes along, he gets kahtyrn upset, and so puzzle time never lasts long...and then we played with some memory cards i made with words on them instead of pictures... so she can start learning how to identify words. and since she's been sick, i pulled out the "Your Baby Can Read" DVDs and her and daniel watched them all... so i figured we'd watch them again today... well i had passed about 1 1/2 hours of playtime but it sure seemed like 3 to me! i was shooting for 2 hours without tv, and with lunch i think i got that. so both kids were in a good mood, and it was time to wind down it was about 2pm, and i needed to fold about 7 loads of laundry, so i put on the movie of my choice "iron giant" and i folded laundry while they watched the movie. at one point daniel came and crawled in my lap, and so i took a pause to hold him...and i realized he fell asleep! lol. within 5 mins. so laid him down. finished laundry and kathryn even helped put the folded clothes away without me even asking! what a sweetie.

i even got a chance to fiddle with some ribbon while the kids played with stuff in the craft room (buttons on the printer powered off, all the gadgets on the sewing machine, spools of ribbon in a box) but that's ok, they weren't harming anything and at least i could see what they were doing. and i had put away all the things i didn't want them touching, so that was nice.

on a side note, i really don't remember it raining so much last december! and i remember now i am so glad i don't have Henry (the dog), every time it would rain he would always potty in the house almost never outside (it's raining, come on) and when he did go outside he'd get so filthy i'd practically need to bathe him every time! just thinking about how annoying that was makes me oh so glad i'm not going through that with all this rain.

another side note! i forgot to post it earlier, but Dec. 15 marked the 8 year anniversary since John and I started dating... i can hardly believe we've been together for that long, and wow have we changed...as everyone does. i laugh just thinking about how we declared we wanted to marry each other within the first week of being together... but look at us now...married with 2 kids. wow how the time flies. sometimes i look back at the letters we wrote to each other, and marvel at how much we loved each other even then, of course we were "in love" where the other can do no wrong and life is all butterflies and roses. lol. and oh how times change even love. our love is on a different level, and it's interesting looking back on how it evolved. the next few pics are within the first few months we were together...

too cute.

so i've caught kathryn telling daniel no and getting all upset about him doing something as trivial as climbing on her bed, and i try to tell her it's not a big deal, but how do you explain to toddlers that you want to "pick your battles" i don't want her following him around telling him no all the time, but if he is doing something he shouldn't that could hurt him, and i wasn't around to see it and she was, i'd want her to tell him no and stop him... but lately, when i tell her to stop bugging him she turns to me and says "tell daniel no!" (he was jumping on the recliner and i don't care, it's not likely he'll hurt himself bad enough to warrant keeping him from doing it...now if he was bouncing on a chair where he could fall on tile...different story) and suddenly it clicked. she must think it's not fair for me to not discipline him EVERY time he does something wrong or something like that... i don't know exactly the way she is associating it, but i'm pretty sure she's thinking i'm not being fair to her. man that's hard. she was my first kid, so yeah i had been hard on her in the past, but i feel like she's stepping out of "toddlerhood" and into whatever the next stage is...where she is being more obedient without me having to discipline her... so as she steps out, daniel is entering into the toddler stage where he pushes his luck and my patience. but i feel like i've developed a different way of correcting bad behavior or bad "choices" since i was there with kathryn...does she remember? bottom line, different forms of discipline work with different ages, and i don't think daniel is old enough to really start hammering out all the bad... or at least the success will be low...