Kid's bathroom

Before:


Almost done:



All's okay but Kreg's scared of this excerpt from our selling guide:
Consider painting your walls neutral colors, especially if you have grown accustomed to purple or pink walls. (Don't give buyers any reason to remember your home as "the house with the orange bathroom.")

yea.....that walls a shade of orange. <---- don't ask. it was only $2 at Lowe's!

when life hands you lemons................

Pull out the tequila and salt!

Just don't do it after receiving a deep tissue massage for the re-occurring low back pain early that day.

You see the pain that lies in her eyes,
But, alas, her eyes are dry,
She won't cry.
No, she won't cry.

You see the anger that burns from her gaze,
The madness that sets her eyes ablaze,
She won't cry.
No, she won't cry.

You see the fear that closes her eyes,
The smile she wears is but a disguise,
She won't cry.
No, she won't cry.

You see the hope that is finally dead,
She cannot trust for her heart has been bled,
She won't cry.
No, she won't cry.

You see the love that lies within,
But she shall never love again,
She won't cry.
No, she won't cry.

You see death's hand that has glazed her eyes,
No one saw her die inside,
They won't cry.
No, they won't cry.

yep

Hunter spent most of the night throwing up.

frustration has turned into anger.

anger into resentment.

why?

we just returned from our trip to La Grange where we celebrated my moms 48th b-day and Kreg and I managed to snag an outside look at some homes. but, we are now living the weekend in hell bit.

so this afternoon, after a hearty BBQ meal, Kreg and I managed to sneak away for what we thought would be a productive afternoon looking at houses. we did manage to sneak a few peaks and gather more information. all the while, back home, my darling bitch of a sister decided to stuff both boys full of chocolate candy, strawberry cake, kool-aid, and cupcakes. most of that going to Jayden. she, and apparently my mother, thought it was so wonderfuly funny. we did not. poor Jayden has been throwing up for the past little while. poor guy is miserable and keeps grasping his little tummy and crying because it hurts.

sersiouly, the nerve of her. what person does that? why would a person do that? why the heck would someone think that was funny? why, why, why??? but don't forget, this is also the person who stole over $200 worth of stuff from me on what was suppose to be our family christmas trip. any my mom and dad wonder why I did not choose her as the boys god-mother. as least someone in the family has brains.

Kreg wonders why we are moving to La Grange. at times, I doubt myself. it's sad to say, but I vow to keep my kids away from her. no kid deserves this. no parent deserves this. yet, I will be seen as the bad person in all of this. how ironic is that?

when I manange to get all the puke cleaned up, my sheets and Jay's sheets washed, and the pictures up, I'll post more about the house hunt. we've also re-done the kids bathroom flooring and it looks kick butt!!! we obviously have quite a bit of frustrution to work out......thank goodness we have a lot to do around the house.....

it's always nice to walk downstairs and see puddles of water. my first thought, Jay has had an accident.

"Jayden, did you pee on my kitchen floor?"

"NO"

hmm......open the bathroom door to see puddles of standing water.

"Boys, why is the bathroom all WET?"

To which Hunter replies: "Mom, it was the coolest thing ever. We kept flushing the potty and water kept running all over the place. (as he is making water over-flowing motions) Here, let me show you."

"HUNTER MICHAEL, NO!!!!!" noticing that the floor isn't covered in water......"Hunter, when did this happen and why didn't you come and tell me."

"It was a little while ago and it was just so cool. Can I please show you?"

"Boys, I'm locking the bathroom door down here until your father gets home. Use the upstairs bathroom and NEVER EVER should water come out of toilet."

"mom, you really aren't that much fun."

more memory - woo-hoo!

so it's been kinda quiet for a while. my computer has been having some 'issues'. well, we finally got some more memory installed in it last night and we are rocking-and-rolling again! if I could only have more memory installed in Kreg..............

after a week of the weather from hell, I could never live somewhere where this is the norm. actually, I could because the whole damn town wouldn't shut-down. the only good thing to come out of the ice storm is Jayden is now potty trained. about time. now, if I could just get him over the fear of public restrooms, I'd be okay. Hunter was the child that wanted to stop at every gas station to leave his mark. Jayden won't go near them. but, who can blame the kid?

I had no idea that putting your house on the market wouldn't be fun. I have boxes everywhere. not only is the garage my work-shop, but I also have all my plants in there do to the wonderful weather. which means the boxes are backing up in the house. and during the inclement weather, since trash pick-up was suppose to be delayed, we didn't bother putting the trash out on Friday. BIG mistake. it came. when we moved into this house six years ago, Kreg and I, not even married, came from a one-bedroom apartment that was maybe 700 sq. ft. we moved into a 2100 sq. ft house with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and managed to inquire 2 kids along the way. not planned. I've never had to deal with so much stuff.

crap.....I am being summoned with an emergency of "Moooooooooooooommmmmmmm. There's something in my tooooooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilet." Be back later.

oh no he didn't.

Kreg is to report to work at noon today. damn, don't I wish I had a job.

so at 10:00 he retorts to take a bucket of water outside and begins to pry all the ice off his car and windshield. he sets the bucket down and goes at it with an ice pick. 45 minutes later, the bucket of water is frozen and he still can't open the door after several unsuccessful pulling attempts. can you believe the ice is that thick? it isn't. he never unlocked the car door prior to trying to pull it open.

rare Texas snow

Cold weather blows.

Seriously.

Last time it was cold, I went out and bought a trunk full of firewood. We enjoy burning fires and the kids love to roast marshmallows. Well, you know Kreg unloaded the trunk of firewood, knowing we would use it when it got cold, so he put it in a pile outside. Let's see, we've had about 7 inches of rain and it's 20 degrees outside, how good is that firewood to me now? Maybe he enjoys having to stop and buy more.........

Seriously.

The kids enjoy making my life heck when we have to spend all day cooped up in the house. They won't stop fighting. Nothing I say or do can stop them. I separate them. They yell back and forth at each other until they get so worked up they make mad dashes to pound on each other. I've about run out of activities, but each one ends in a fight. There always has to be a winner. Need I say, I HATE COMPETITION. Seriously, they or I are going to end up in an institution. Kreg enjoys making everything competitive. I don't think he realizes what he is doing.

Seriously.

People around here are nuts when the 'threat' of cold weather looms. Saturday night after our movie, we headed by the grocery store because I was out of Diet Coke. Heaven help me. Might as well grab a few groceries while we were there. Except they had no meat. The whole meat department was empty. no bread, spaghetti sauce, tortillas, eggs, french fries, chips, beans, frozen pizza. I did luck out with the diet coke. I mean, seriously people. Maybe I'm the nut for not freaking out.

Seriously.

I'm getting old :) My cousin came into town on Thursday night to shack-up at our house since he had to do some work in Austin the next day. In good 'ole Grubert tradition, we break out the booze and spend the night catching up, chit chatting, reminiscing, and having a darn good time. Granted, I only had 3 beers so I'm not sure if it was them or staying up until 1:00 that made me feel like hell the next day. Seriously, what the heck? I am only 27. Must be the kids.

Seriously.

How have I lived in this house the past 6 years? We spent all day Saturday working on cleaning our bedroom. I have about 15 garbage bags of garage sell stuff. 15!?!?!?!? I haven't even touched the play room or the boys rooms. But I can now see the floor in my closet :) It's amazing how much work you can get done without kiddos around.

Seriously.

My cousins have the cutest little girl ever!!!! And that's just from the pictures. I haven't even seen her in real life yet. The little cheeks.....and toes......and that smile. Oh.....it almost makes me want another baby. But only almost. Seriously, my life is brought back to reality fast as the boys just spilled grape juice all over the kitchen because they were fighting over the towel. Yea....we do own more than one.......of that one.......and now Hunter is screaming because Jayden has tackled him to the ground and is sitting on him in attempts to cut his hair because evidently Kreg gave him scissors last night and never took them back.

Seriously.

Gotta love my life :)

date night

so the kids are in La Grange for a long weekend with the grandparents, so Kreg and I made plans to go to the movies. We both have been wanting to see the The Pursuit of Happyness We get to Alamo Drafthouse around 7:20 for the 7:40 movie to find it and every other show SOLD OUT! Well........we decided to buy tickets for Saturday night and are told to show up an hour early for seats. But what the heck are we going to do now? No kids for 4 days, we must do something. Let's head over to Buca di Beppo's for a nice dinner. 2 hour wait. Okay.....Dave and Buster's. Not a seat in the house. Darn. What are we going to do already? Finally the lights flash in our heads and we decide to head out for a night of sushi! Sushi Sake. The wait was only 15 minutes, not bad. And the sushi was super yummy!!!!

Now it's on to more fun stuff, like packing up stuff around the house.....

a mear few miles away......

we could be getting a water park.....hmmm.....don't you want to buy our house?

Busy as a Bee

Things have been super crazy over in our world. If the darn smoke alarms aren't keeping me up all night, it's the demanding son that I have. but that's another story.............but I've finally ripped the smoke alarms out of the wall. we will let the new owners deal with that. yep, folks, we are selling our house.

okay first let's start with........

this is my last week of "full-time" work at Ann Taylor. Having the kids with a nanny is killing me and the week I had off and spent in Ruidoso with them made me realize how much I actually do enjoy being with them. Plus, Hunter's teacher has told me the kid is ready to start reading. She wishes she had the time to work with him, but has left us with encouragement. I want to be able to spend time with him. And, well since we made the decision to put the house on the market, I have SO much work to do. It's not funny. So I need my days to start packing up this mess and cleaning out all that baby stuff to sell. so, instead of spending my time away, I'm going to spend it at home working diligently to get this house ready to sell. I'm going to work sporadically at Ann Taylor to keep the good discount :)

we always knew we wanted to move before the kids started kindergarten. but we never knew where. well, La Grange is going to be where we end up. Crazy, huh? at least my parents are there and we are hoping to get the kids into the Catholic school. something I've wanted.

so if things weren't already crazy enough, they are about to get crazier. tiling, carpet cleaning, boxing up stuff and more stuff is how I will be spending my days.

in other news..............

Kreg decided to shave off his goatee for the 1st time in YEARS and the kids didn't recognize him. Hunter asked, "Dad, is that you?"

since buying this Sonic game for the playstation, I've had a hard time pulling Kreg and the kids away.

since all the toys the kids got for Christmas are now 75% off at Target, I think we are going to have Christmas in January next year. Just think of all the money we could save!!!

my dad, who turns 50 in April, had so much fun skiing for the 1st time in Ruidoso, he's already looking for somewhere new to go next Christmas.

I still have yet to find my Chi iron and blowdryer I took to Ruidoso. damn sisters. it's really not funny any more.

how 'bout those Cowboy's?

december was an EXCELLENT month as far as my store were concerned! candle sales were fantastic. I even managed to sell a few scarves. not bad!

my mom is taking the boys for 4 days this weekend so Kreg and I can actually get to the movies and start packing up. wish us luck :0)

I've got to get to the grocery store tonight before it closes.........darn boys are eating me out of house and home.

Christmas in Ruidoso

but here's how the "trip" turned out.

reg did a darn good job of fitting everything into the car the night before we left. we just had last minute stuff that there was NO room for. it was bad. but we managed to get everything loaded, the car started and wisked the kids into the car around 4:45 to leave. our intentions were for them to never wake up and spend the first couple of hours sleeping. yay.....we were dreaming. they spent the first hours of the trip talking non-stop. only to fall asleep when we hit Fredricksburg and we were meeting the rest of my family in Kerville for breakfast. that was a 20 minute nap. we arrive in Kerville around 7-ish to find out my brother had turned the alarm off and were running about an hour behind. GREAT.

we arrive in Ruidoso around 4:45 that afternoon after a dozen stops. we find our cabin without too much
trouble and discover it with snow all around. about 6 inches of snow. and why it was called Deer Friends.

the boys were in heaven. they hit the ground immediately for snow angels and the snow ball fights began. the deer ate anything and everything we would feed them.

on Christmas Eve we decide to make the 12 mile trek up to Ski Apache to check things out. our cabin was about 2 miles up the road from Ski Run Road which took you up to Ski Apache. we went about 25-30 miles up the twist and turns of the mountains. it was a beautiful drive. we arrive to a breathtaking mountain covered in snow. I actually get excited and looking forward to skiing. and I've never before skiied in my life. we check out lessons for Hunter and really want to put him in a class but he won't do it. so we all decide to come back on Tuesday for skiing and head off to an area to 'play' in the snow. you have to climb up the little hill covered in snow. well, of course, the guys make it up first and blast us with snow balls as we are trying to make it up. we spend about an hour having fun.

on Christmas Day the kids awake full of excitement. it take them about 10 minutes to rip through their gifts. when they are done, Hunter proudly exclaims, "wow.....Santa brought me so much stuff and I wasn't even that good this year."

we spend the day lounging around the house before heading off to Winter Park for some tubing! you get there, get your tube and then head up a magic carpet lift to take you up to the top of the hill. they have paths carved out in the snow to take you down.

I head down first and learn very quickly to lift my butt since it dragging down the hard packed snow isn't fun. it also gives you more momentum going down. kreg takes both the boys down and they are loving it. after about an hour and a half of packing the tubes and the kids, I grab Hunter a little tube, put him in it and push him down all in one swift move. the kid LOVED it. he couldn't stop laughing. and he knew exactly what to do. he got to the end of the trail, picked his tube up and ran to get back up the hill on his own. Jayden screamed the whole way down because he wanted to go on his own. so the next time, we sent him down and he LOVED it. Hunter couldn't get back up the hill fast enough. he'd get into the tube, spin the whole way down and then couldn't walk when he tried to get out. after about 3 hours, we were getting tired. we roasted some marshmellows down by the fire and then headed home to get warm.

skiing is another story :) better left for tomorrow. here's a few more pictures and a slide show to enjoy:

Giant Gingerbread House:

what happens when you get bored:

and the slide show's: