Neighborhood entertainment

All right folks, I am going to share my most recent embarrassing moment.  I worked in the girls' pre-school classroom this morning and I was busting to get back home to get Brayden off of the school bus.  Otherwise they drive him back to his school.  However, this 'Couve girl is not all that confidant in maneuvering through snowy roads.  We pulled into my garage about 5 minutes past the regular school bus drop off.  I hurried out of the van, yanked the door open and unloaded Gavin, my neighbor's son, and then hurried the girls out.  Apparently Ellie didn't have time to grab her glove and let me tell you, the WHOLE neighborhood heard about it. 

Yes, it is usually a wonderful thing to be directly across the street from the bus stop, however, when your child/children is/are having a melt down everyone gets to witness your (lack of) parenting skills. Ellie was shrieking at the top of her lungs about her glove......I was NOT going to buy into that and help her find it because she was out of control.  I helped Gavin get bundled, I helped Dani get bundled (Ellie is still screaming like a banshee), I looked up and saw Gavin's mom scurrying over to rescue him from the utter chaos of my garage.  I also looked up to see at LEAST 6-7 parents at the bus stop waiting for their beloved child.  Yes,  ALL eyes were on ME!  I smiled and waved, and yelled (over Ellie), "Glad we can provide you some entertainment.  I'm not charging admission, but a charitable donation to my coffee fund would be appreciated."

Meanwhile.....Jackie rescued Gavin, Dani and I were ready to cross the street and Ellie is still losing it to the fullest in our garage.  I yank her up, carry her inside, tell her to sit on the stairs (yeah, right), then realized there's no way she will stay there.  I carried her up to her room and slammed the door and told her to sit there.  I ran down and got Dani and went to the bus stop.  Low and behold as we were crossing the street, our front door opened and, "MMMOOOOOMMMMMM, come here right now!" came barreling through the air." 

This is what I am so proud of, I calmly turned around and said, "Ellie you need to go back into your room."  All the parents were staring/laughing/rolling their eyes at me.  Surprisingly nobody wanted her, nor a play date with us.  :(  One friend suggested I cancel my clients today, keep the baby-sitter, and go have drinks.  That sounds better and better by the second.........(She is still screaming 30 minutes later).

First Snow!

Christmas came early for my kids this year! 

 We woke up to a few inches of SNOW!  As a parent, I don't get quite as excited, especially since Spokane doesn't shut down, life continues and you're expected to drive and get to appointments.  BUT today we were free to play!  After Brayden got home from school we met the neighborhood gang of kids out on the hill (which didn't work quite as well as our own backyard)!  There were a few minor meltdowns from cold and ice, but overall it was a BLAST!

                                                  Owen attempting snowboarding.

                                          Kaiden and Ryan hiking up for another ride down.

                                                 Dani, Gavin and Ellie cruisin'.

                                                                 Ellie and Gavin

                                                       Ellie on the first run down the hill!

I think this is the first of many sledding days to come this year.  We can't wait!

3 1/2 going on......22?

As the girls were playing tonight I overheard, "I will be right back, I have to go pick up my boyfriend."  Yes, that's right, they were playing "house" and they are three and a half years old and they think they should have a boyfriend.

 This is pretty much my worst nightmare.  When they were born and the Dr. said,  "It's another girl."  I instantly thought, 'Oh my god, TWO teenage girls.'  This is just a tiny, tiny glimpse into what life will eventually be like.  I really hope they will have different boyfriends and different tastes....the way things are going I don't think they could be anymore different.  We shall see, time will tell, wish me luck, the years will pass quickly and I will be at another level of crazy, psychotic, and non-stop worry.  :)

Hunting......

Thursdays are typically long days for me.....tonight, it was even longer.  When I came upstairs at 5:45 after my last client, I had to say good bye to my wonderful baby-sitter.  She starts basketball season next week.  I am saddened, but also excited for her because I know how much fun is in store for her.  BUT before we said good bye she let me know that Brayden had dropped the garage door opener when they were at the park.......

ME:  "Oh, ok well, did you find it?"

"No, HE looked for it, but HE didn't see it."

ME:  "Ok, well everyone get your coats, hats, gloves, socks and shoes on and get flashlights."  It was pitch black out, luckily it wasn't raining or snowing, but it was 40 degrees.  I am proud to say that I didn't get angry, B felt terrible and had tears in his eyes.   Everyone knows the countless stupid things I have done, I couldn't get mad for an honest mistake.  I did however, have to bite my tongue and just WONDER why THEY didn't all go look through the park while it was LIGHT out!?!

Kent pulled in from work as we were heading out.  Luckily he started dinner and kept the girls inside.  Meanwhile, B and I forged the trails looking with ONE flashlight (B's burnt out after 5 minutes).  As we were searching and searching B was saying, among other things:

"Look Mom, I see stars, I think it's a constellation."
"Mom, do bats live here?" 
"Mom, do coyotes live here?"
"I see something there!  I think it's a penny!!!"
"I see something there, oh it's a round mushroom."

We searched for a half an hour, then had to take a potty break.  While we were getting ready to go back out, a knock at the door.  Foolishly, I answered it.  Low and behold it's Comcast.  I only got suckered in because the guy had a stutter.  I was fascinated with his dysfluencies and secondary behaviors.  I was so impressed that he had the nerve to go door to door and spiel off his dialogue to complete strangers and STRUGGLE!  I of course, decided to switch our cable/phone/internet plan.  This took 40 minutes. 

Finally, everyone had been fed and we were out the door, bundled up, all with working flashlights in hand.  Low and behold Kent found our garage door opener!  YAY for Kent and YAY for an end to an extremely long day.

New and Old

Here are some pics. from Halloween night.  The kids had the BEST time.  We went to the church carnival, then for the first time ever we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood!

Uncle Kelly hooked up a trailer to his 4 wheeler and took the kids for a hay ride while we trick-or-treated.  They thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever! 

That's the old news.

New News!

Last weekend I got to fly to the 'Couve all by myself!  Thank you to my wonderful husband for watching our darling children.   My sister had her baby. 

Leila Kennedi was born on

 October 23, weighing 6lbs. 3 ozs.

We went down to Albany to visit my Grandma Wagener.  She was thrilled to see her 3rd {OOPS 4th}Great-Grandchild!

                                                     4 generation of Wagener girls!

                                                Talking to Great-Grandma Wagener

                                                                     Happy Baby Leila

                                                                          Leila and Grandpa

 I had to include this pic. of my kids having a spa day while I was downstairs trying to catch up on my work.  I walked into the kitchen and Brayden was painting his sister's nails..... a little scary when you think about the damage that could have been done.  (The nail polish is now put up WAY WAY high).

                         The other sister and the 4 generations (this didn't upload the first time around). 
Thanks for a fun weekend girls!  It was so nice to be able to hang out and hold a sweet baby, without screaming kids surrounding me and demanding things of me!  :)  Can I please come back? (alone)

A BIG day!

 I am a new Auntie to a baby niece.  My sister, Kalin, had a baby girl this morning; Leila 6lb. 3ozs.  We are very excited and the kids made "Happy Birthday Leila" signs.  We can't wait to meet her.

 After a rainy soccer morning, we got to go to a Halloween party!  We have Spiderman, Snow White and Cinderella.  They were bouncing off the walls, raring to go!  (They really didn't want to smile for this pic).

 Kent and I borrowed some friend's costumes and we were set.  Last year we went to the same party and we were the ONLY grown-ups not dressed up.  This year I was grateful that Stephanie let me borrow some outfits.....however, ONLY the host and hostess were dressed up.  The best part was Kent's face as families kept walking in and NO ONE had costumes on.  Two of my friends thought the best part of the night was seeing Kent dressed up.  :)  They don't really know that he is a "wild and crazy guy!" 

Thanks for a great time Chris and Jackie! 

A Little Adventure

First of all, who can help me with my header pic?  It is HUGE, I can't figure out how to change the size. 

Last night I had my book club.  We read "Half-Broke Horses" by Jeannette Walls.  It was wonderful, this is also the author who wrote "The Glass Castle".  I liked "The Glass Castle" better, but the other one is def. worth the read.  Anywho.....last night at book club I was telling them a story and I forgot to put it on my blog about Green Bluff.....

After our glorious apple picking and pumpkin looking, Kent and I decided to take a different way home.  It was a beautiful day and we didn't have anything on the agenda (for once).  We took off in the opposite direction of where we had come from.  We ran in to TONS of traffic that was heading to the Harvest House, after 30-40 minutes of waiting in a traffic jam (where we were perfectly content, the kids not so much), we started winding our way around the beautiful hills.  We kept driving and driving and the kids kept asking, "Where are we going?  When are we going to be home?"  I know all of you moms and dads can picture it.

 I kept saying, "We're having fun, we are just going for a drive." 
"Yeah, but WHEN are we going to get there?"

 After about another 45 minutes to an hour we had turned onto a gravel road, which was our only choice at that point, and realized that it indeed was a dead end.  You would think that if there were school bus stop signs it would continue to go through, it was when we saw school bus turnaround that we knew it was probably a done deal.  At this point, as we were turning around, the girls had fallen asleep (YAY)  and Brayden was near tears with panic.  Can you tell we don't do too many spontaneous things around here?  B seriously thought something tragic was happening because we were just driving to nowhere!  I had to keep reassuring him that we were having fun and we were going on an "adventure!"

 Thus, this is how my opening ties into this rambling.  In "The Glass Castle" they are constantly going on adventures, there whole life is one, big, long adventure.  I have decided that my insistence on a scheduled day/life, and constantly having to be on time or early, with everything written on the calendar may need to become a little more lax.  My husband may need to stop making spreadsheets of daily activities.  :)  (gasp now Kent).  I have to say, with three small children it is VERY necessary to be organized and always have a plan of attack, but I am really going to try to take it as it comes, and try to have more ADVENTURES, maybe then my kids won't fall asleep and/or start crying.  :)

P.S.  We ended up going home the same way we got there.  There is no through road that goes East from Green Bluff.  None that we could find anyway, but I am still counting it as a successful adventure.