A Spider Tried To Kill Me!

On the way home from Ashley's softball game tonight, the kids and I were terrorized by a big furry black spider that some how found it's way into my van. It started out on the passenger seat and made it's way closer to me as I was driving. I don't think I've ever been as freaked out in my life before as I was tonight. While driving, I attempted to kill it with Ryan's flip flop (did you really think I was going to use my own?) but it just kept curling up into a ball and running away. As we pulled into the neighborhood I swung into the first driveway and jumped out. Larry and Joan were outside doing some work on their house and probably thought I had lost my mind. Larry tried his hardest to find the thing, but it's God knows where, hiding and just waiting for me to get back inside before it tries to attack again. I managed to get home (yes, I sped just a teeny tiny bit) and got myself and the kids out of the van. I looked all over again and still couldn't find the nasty thing. I left my van on the driveway, because I am NOT getting back into it until Bret gets home from his softball game and exterminates it. If he can't find it we'll just have to have the van towed and buy a new one!

I think it looked a little something like this.

Okay, maybe it was more like this. But really! It's just as bad and it's still in there!

Together Again

Tonight at Ashley's first softball game, Ryan was reunited with his little friend Hannah again. It was like no time had passed at all.

The picture's quality is not so great because it's from my camera phone and the sun came out at that exact moment that she was looking up at him.

The game itself did not go as well, though. The other team demolished us and the sad thing is that their runs were only scored by stealing bases. I don't think they ever had a single hit. The game was over after 3 innings.

One Dirty Boy Coming Up

Ryan's new favorite pastime - getting filthy dirty. He had to be carried into the house and straight into the bathtub.

Dunlap Dynamites

This year's softball team...

(click on picture to enlarge)

Bret and Ashley are in the top row all the way on the left.

Weekend Update

I am officially garage saled out! It's amazing how many people will try to talk you down a mere 50 cents and then walk away when you say no. Or when you have 8 pairs of medical scrubs and someone asks if you'll take a dollar off each one and you say no, thinking that surely someone else will buy them - and then two weekends later they are still in your possesion. Everything is back in rubbermaid tubs and ready to be put away for the next neighborhood sale. If I ever recover from these last two weekends by then.

I went to the doctor to have my ankle checked out again yesterday and he told me, "Congratulations. You've managed to tear all three tendons in your one ankle." Ouch. Luckily, he said that if I go back to icing it every 2 hours again, it should heal up pretty well for our vacation to Disney World in 11 DAYS! We're almost to single digits, people! I may have to wear the air cast he gave me while I'm there, but it should be okay. I just may end up with some pretty horrible tan lines around my ankle by the time we get home.

Well, I'm off to finish icing my ankle and then I'm going to go take back control of my house. It's been neglected for way too long!

Day Three

It's day three of this whole sprained ankle business. Still swollen. Still hurts. Still sitting on the couch with my foot raised higher than my head. I am so over this! Anyone want to come clean my house and do my laundry? It's out of control over here.

The Art Of Delegating

I think it's safe to say that my family is ready for me to be able to walk again. I'm under strict orders to stay off my foot and keep it elevated and iced. If I try to cheat it swells and throbs really bad and makes my toes look twice their normal size.

After a busy day outside (trying) to help run our garage sale, I am now on the couch with my ice bag again. (We ran out of frozen green beans). We did really well today and hopefully tomorrow will go well, too.

My daughter is (unenthusiastically) learning all about doing laundry. She's officially been instructed through a load and there's plenty more piling up where that came from. Bret surprised me when I got up this morning with a clean house that had been picked up the night before. Ryan (smartly) has disappeared downstairs to the world of Star Wars Play Station so I haven't been able to assign him anything yet. I might just have to milk this for a few extra days. Ha! Everyone that knows me can tell you that I can't handle this for long. Eventually I'll have to find a way to clean the house, catch the laundry up and organize something or I will go insane.

Vacation Curse Hits Again!

Guess it was my turn to make a visit to the emergency room. After a day of setting up garage sale stuff, Emily and I drove around putting up signs to increase our traffic flow. After watching her jump on the signs while trying to get them into the dry ground and laughing my butt off at her, I decided to give her a hand.

While carrying a sign, I was so busy watching for oncoming cars that I didn't pay enough attention to the big ditch between the parking lot and the road and down I went. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. My first thought on my way down to the ground was, NO! Disney World! I felt my ankle give out. I heard it crack. I saw it swell up to the size of a tennis ball immediately and then I felt the agonizing pain. I was sure that is was broken. Em immediately drove me (while I sobbed) home while I tried to call someone to meet me there to take me to the ER. No one answered. Bret was in the dentist's chair. His mom was in her doctor's office. No one else was answering their phones. So I called my sister in law at work and begged her to come get me - thankfully she did and quickly, too.

After a hour and a half of enduring painful positioned xrays and long boring bouts of waiting, I learned that it was only sprained. Not broken! I can still go to Disney World! What a relief, because I was going to go anyways - even if Bret was going to have to push me around in a wheel chair!

Let me tell you - it's great to have friends that are so dependable. One's that you can drop off a baby to with no warning. And one's that will be there for your kids when they get off the bus. And especially the ones that will carry your sad and clutzy self through the door and even pull your pants up multiple times when they start to fall down from hobbling aournd. Because when these things happen, everything gets so chaotic that it's reassuring to know that the people that mean the most to you will always be there for you. Thanks, guys!

Ryan's New School Picture

Ryan brought his new picture home today. Wow, he's really grown up this year!

My Little Helper

Cecelia has been so cute while I've been working. She's sat perfectly still in the middle of the pool table while I've sorted, bagged and priced. Thankfully, the Little People stuff is almost done. Or at least it was almost done...

Caught in the act.

Totally busted - and she knows it!

Please note that no babies were allowed to play with dangerous plastic bags today. They were only allowed to dump them - then they were taken away. I know you were thinking it! LoL

Little People Overload

I am officially drowning in my son's Fisher Price Little People! I thought for sure I could get these sorted and priced while the babies take their morning naps. Yea, right! I now have millions (no exageration here) of Little People toys scattered all over my basement and my hair is sticking up all over the place from pulling it out in frustration.

But, on a happy note. I've got one very happy little baby (Chloe) who has free reign of the downstairs playroom. She's in Little People heaven. Yes, I'm saving a few sets for the babies to play with here. (Clears throat - um - and you know, just in case Ryan feels a bit nostalgic and wants to play with them, too.)

I'll admit, it was an addiction for a few years.

That's right. You guessed it - there are tubs and tubs and tubs and drawers more of it!

Will someone please save me?

3 WEEKS!!!!

3 weeks from today I'm going to be screaming my head off on awesome rides and soaking up the sun's rays at this pool! It's calling my name - I can hear it. Really.

Go Diego Go!

Last night, Bret and Ryan went with a friend and his son to see Go Diego Go down at the Civic Center. They all had a great time and Ryan was totally wiped out when he got home. I got to stay behind and start getting my stuff together for this weekend's neighborhood garage sale over at my sister in law's house. Yes, we have to start setting up on Thursday and I'm just beginning to get my stuff together on Tuesday. Makes sense, right?

Ashley's New School Picture

Ashley got her new school pictures back today. Aren't they cute? Not sure what happened to Ryan's.

Update: You'll get your pictures whenever I get them printed. (All I ordered was the disc.)

This Can't Be Good!

This can't be a good thing. All of these red spots on this map of Florida? Wildfires! And the air quality right now in Orlando? Very smoky and hazy. Ugh! Pray for rain!!!

The Payoff

There are days when the babies have gone home and my own kids are in bed and the house is quiet for the night and I look forward to enjoying some quiet time by myself or just sitting on the couch watching something from on the DVR with my husband (who patiently pauses whatever we're watching everytime I think of something I want to tell him).

Then there are days like yesterday afternoon when one of the babies snuggle with me on the couch for a half an hour all sweet and content. Or there's this morning when the other baby lays her head on my chest as I rock her for a minute as she falls asleep in my arms and I contemplate whether I should lay her down or hold her for a few more minutes, inhaling her sweet baby smell.

There are also times when my daughter will give me a hug for no other reason than just being glad to see me or sad to see me go even if it's just to go out with the girls from the neighborhood for a couple of hours. Or when my son will tell me I'm the best mom in the world and actually give up one of his rare hugs and kisses because I've done something that has made him truely happy.

These times are so rare that you just never want to let go of that euphoric feeling that it leaves you with. It's times like those that give you the biggest payoff possible - the payoff of knowing that you're doing something right and are truely loved and appreciated.

Too Loud

I am so ready for my kids to go to bed. So very ready. It has been such a long day. Too long of a day to form any kind of sentence that makes sense. Do you think it would have been too much to ask that a volume control have been included when they were born?

Creepiness Factor

Just when I thought I had the world figured out, I'm now questioning what's really out there. Tonight after Ashley's volleyball tournament, we (Ash, my mom and myself) headed over to Applebee's for dinner and the creepiness factor was off the charts. While waiting for our food to be served, a man was seated by himself at the table across from us. We didn't think anything of it until he started talking to himself. At first we thought maybe he was talking into a blue tooth phone through the ear that was facing away from us, but once he turned his head we uneasily threw that explanation right out the window when we saw nothing there.

Soon, his "conversations" went from short "Yes.", "I know." and "That's right." phrases as if he were answering someone, straight to alarming things like, "God will save us.", "Only he knows what really happened to you.", "Satan will come." and then a lot of unintelligible words strung together.

Creepy, right? While this was going on, we exchanged uneasy glances with those dining around us. Everyone was hearing all of this. All of the waitresses and waiters were huddled around down at the end of the aisle whispering and stealing glances at this man. No one knew what to think. Was he just plain loosing it and talking to himself? Did he think someone was there with him? Was someone or something really there with him? What? I really want to know - I think.

When we were done eating, we figured it was best to just leave before it got even more creepier - if that were even possible. Ashley was with us and I didn't really want her to witness anything that might keep her up with nightmares tonight - or worse - get her started asking questions that I didn't have the answers to, so we quickly paid our bill and left. It's just that with all of the recent nightmare headlines in the news lately, how can you really be sure someone like that isn't dangerous or unstable? So we left. Probably nothing else happened after that, but still it was creepy all the same.

It's A Boy! Maybe.

So, I might have the opportunity to add a newborn baby boy to my daytime bunch next October. I'm seriously considering it. Am I crazy? One of Ashley's teachers is due in August and is looking for a sitter. You can't beat a teacher's schedule. But three kids under the age of 1? Hmmm...got to think about this.

$3.19

Are you kidding me? It cost me $70 to fill up today!

This one has it right.

Let Me Out!

Nine months old and already begging to go outside and play.

36 Days To Go And One Nifty Homemade Countdown Calendar!

Because it's not me who's excited or anything...