Wednesday Photo Dump

Not much in the means of real content in this post...

 

the jar-o. he's funny.



i cut his hair - this is halfway through. he looks like anthony ryan from project runway. and he is, obviously, thrilled about that.



the girlies got to spend some quality time with ellis. he's a cutie.



when rachel was in her scooting days, my brother-in-law & brother both took to calling her "my precious". they claim she moved like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. seeing Gollum as the answer to a game i was playing prompted me to save this pic.



truth.



my car rolled to 131313 miles - is that lucky?





and sometimes you go on a lunch date with a sleepy 8 year old. and rather than spending quality time talking, she spends the time playing on her iPod.

    

and sometimes, most of the time - the 5 year old spends the weekend evenings laying/sitting on her mama. and there is a huge mess on the coffee table & i don't care.



with my new kindle (which i still love) i miss the feel of a real book. i checked out some books at the library. this one is good.

 

the cat lays right in my face every night when i lay down. then quickly leaves me to go snuggle with liv.

  

she's got her own style. the shirt (which you can't see) is equally awesome covered in butterflies.



Playing Catch Up

What have we been up to???

Let's see...My parent/teacher conference with Olivia's teacher went great. She is doing wonderful in school. They are reading a book about WWII from the viewpoint of a young girl. She loved it so much she wanted a copy of her own. My in-laws bought it for her & she has been reading it every chance she can get. It's called the Yellow Star. She is recovering from an ear infection. She didn't feel well Monday the 4th so she stayed home. Then she went to school Tuesday & Wednesday. She came home early Wednesday with a fever. Didn't go to school Thursday still fever & felt puny. Friday there was no school for P/T conferences. And she felt fine because she had a great time with her Bopchi & Tata. Then Saturday she didn't feel good again. Another fever. I took her to the Dr & I am glad I did. It was a nasty ear infection & sinus infection. She has since finished her antibiotic. And is acting 100% back to normal.

What about Rachel? She's healthy. No sickness for that girl. She is loving dance class these days. She also loves learning her letters in pre-school. She dances & sings all.the.time. She especially loves playing Olivia's pink guitar. She makes up songs. It's great. Jarrett is hoping that we can turn this into some type of Taylor Swift career for her. So we will keep pushing the guitar & song writing. Ha!

Jarrett? He's unhappy. He hates winter. He's tired of the cold. He's tired of the wind. He's tired of wearing a coat. And he is especially aggrivated with our current forecast. We are supposed to have a winter storm come our way tomorrow. Something like 3 - 6 inches of snow. Then turning into sleet & freezing rain Friday. Possible ice accumulation of 1/4 inch. Going to be super fabulous. I love when the forecast says "conditions will deteriorate rapidly once the snow begins. travel will become hazardous due to poor visibility". It's going to be so much fun to drive home from work Thursday.

And here are some pictures of me & my favorite girls just for kicks.

scratch-offs for 3rd graders

oh i've missed being crafty. the extent of my craftiness over the past few months can be seen here. and to tell the truth, that really didn't take much work. so, i've been itching to do something crafty. enter, pinterest & it's wonderful crafty goodness.

bad mom confession: olivia loves scratch off tickets. a lot. and i have been known to buy the $1 ones, occasionally, just to let her scratch them off. we rarely win. but she has fun anyways. so when i stumbled upon this, i knew she would love it. ok so i did my own variation of them, but it's still awesome.

may i present to you, olivia's valentine scratch-offs.

and just for kicks, a tutorial.

i printed the jokes 3x5 so there were 4 to a page. as an added bonus, my color ink ran out so some of the hearts look like they are on fire - red fading to yellow-orange. i was ticked, but olivia loved it. no harm no foul. i also used picmonkey.com to get the heart doily & liv picked the font. it was a good choice. I modge-podged them onto red cardstock.

i bought a package of the clear address labels at the wally. i may have panicked slightly when i found that they weren't exactly clear. but it worked out fine.

here it is with the label over the punchline. see, you can barely see it.

for the scratch-off, i mixed dawn liquid dish soap and metallic craft pain ($.97 at the wally). this is after 1 coat. i may have panicked a little bit here too.

here it is after 4 coats of the paint/soap mixture. it may not look perfect, but hey we are talking about 8 year olds so they won't be overly critical like me.

i cannot stress this enough, let them dry dry dry. fyi - 3 hours not long enough. however, i let them set overnight & tested again, voila. it worked perfectly.

here they are in all their glory. (please ignore my messy counter and random pill bottle.)

all that is left for olivia to do is write the to/froms on the back. my plan is to attach a penny to the back too so they can scratch away.

thank you, pinterest. 

A little about my Olivia

a couple weeks ago, olivia got to go on a dinner date with her dad & i alone. she said it was "the best day of her life". i think this girl wishes she was an only child sometimes, but then again who doesn't when they are 8. on our date, we went to the mall. she got these owl earrings. they are dangley with feathers. she loves them. i think they are gawdy. we agree to disagree.

also on the date, we went to red lobster. she thought ordering a root beer that came in a bottle was the coolest thing. i have to agree. my little dear doesn't get to have soda, like at all. so it was a rare treat.

on the way home from the date, she texted with my friend katie for over a half hour. to quote one of the texts "i feel like we are sisters". olivia is such a fun little kid. she really is. she's cool. she's the kind of person i would want to hang out with. which means, i am doing something right.   when we went to the truck show last weekend, we stayed in a hotel. olivia loved it. who doesn't?! she had a ball swimming. i always think it's really neat and admirable how kids can just talk to other kids. no judgement. whereas, i sat in the corner of the pool room not right next to the other mom. and we spoke maybe 2 sentences to each other. but olivia had a full convo with 3 of the other kids. and even told them what room we were staying in. maybe i should work on that little bit, but other than that little bit of info i would prefer she kept private, i thought it was awesome that she just talks to every kid.

also, olivia is pretty. i don't know if you have noticed or not, but she is quite a looker. her hair that she got chopped into a little bob over the summer has grown out. she let me straighten it in the hotel. so pretty.

olivia loves to draw. her new thing now is to draw comics. specifically comics of sonic the hedgehog. she's pretty good. one of her favorite gifts for christmas is a sketch pad she received from my mom & dad. she is frequently seen putting it to good use.

olivia also loves her kitteh. snooki is now olivia's responsibility. she cleans out the litter box. she feeds her & gives her water. it's been good. i have to remind her to do the litter box. as luck would have it, snooki reminds her that she needs fed.

you know how i said she's cool. well she is. and by god, she is so much like me, it's a bit scary. i love her laugh. she has the best laugh.

what else....

i love her. a lot. more than she will ever know. well, maybe she will know how much once she is grown & has kids of her own.

  that's just a little bit about my olivia.  

Truck Show 2013

the truck show was a smashing success. hotel - success. 2nd place finish - success.

the girls had a great time. they wore matching outfits, i know i know. but sometimes it has to happen. those are peterbilt shirts that say "Trucking Princess". love it.

face painting fun.

i'm so proud of jarrett. all the hard work he puts into that truck obviously shows.

2nd place trophy & some cash money y'all.

family pic. i look like i kinda just walked up & stood by the 3 of them getting their picture taken, no? haha.

and here is another picture of the truck. jarrett's baby. his pride & joy.

Today

Welcome, February! Wait...that cannot be right. How is it already February? 1 down 11 to go.

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Today, I will spend the day with my love. We will laugh. We will relax. We will enjoy each other's company.

You see, we are going to the truck show today. I will sit back and kick my feet up. I will read on my kindle. I will, possibly, watch a show or two. I will walk hand-in-hand with my trucker as we check out all the sights the truck show has to offer.

He will be in his height of glory. And I will enjoy seeing him being so happy. I know he is going to love spending the day talking about his truck. Explaining all the up-grades & repairs he has made to the truck in the last year.

And tonight, we will stay in a hotel room with our 2 darling daughters. We will sit back as they swim and enjoy the hotel pool. We will have pizza delivered to our room. Of course, we could come home. But we aren't. We are only traveling a mere 60 miles from home and decided to 'live a little' and stay in a hotel. Why not?

You see, the winter blues are kicking in. Granted this weather hasn't been nearly as frightful as it could be, it is still winter - blah. We decided to enjoy our little 2 day jaunt to the north. Hotels = fun for kids. Am i right? I know I always LOVED it! So these girls of ours are in for quite a treat.