Dah-ling

"You're gorgeous, oh Mommy you're gorgeous". "Mommy dah-ling you're just gorgeous!"

This is what my two littlest princesses have been saying to me today! So cute!

Well, that and "No way Mommy, No way!!"...

Easter

Easter did a number on my diet. This candy needs to leave the house because I have ZERO will power when it comes to candy! I'm pretty sure I gained a few pounds over the last few days! And I've been lucky to make it to the gym once a week over the past few weeks. I'm really frustrated about that.

Monday

I haven't changed a diaper in 9 days! Yes, there have been a few accidents (times 2) but the girls are well on their way to being completely potty trained! I'm so proud of them, and they're SO proud of themselves! It's so cute to watch them clap and cheer for each other too! Wow am I blessed by these two special little girls! I can't believe that the last "baby" thing is now gone, no more diapers. In a strange way I'm kind of sad just because it like the official sign that my tiny little babies are growing up way too fast.

Leah got very sick last night, 104 fever and vomiting. I worry so much about the kids when they're sick. I hate, just hate putting them to bed with a high fever. I pray that she wakes up feeling much better and that it somehow miraculously skips the other kids.

Matt is on his last night of night shift for this rack and then he's off until Friday day shift. Thank goodness. We're still trying to recover from his turnaround. We are very behind in things with the house so it's almost, almost a blessing that we haven't had a showing. We have been getting hits on the house like crazy so someone is looking at it at least.

Happy Easter!

I want to wish everyone a very blessed and happy Easter! I've kind of dropped off the face of the planet recently and am sad that I haven't been in touch with any friends or any family for that matter. I needed to just regroup in a way I guess. I deleted my Facebook account and so that makes me feel like I've dropped off the face of the Earth since that was my "connection" to the outside world when Matt's working long stretches and I'm home alone with the kids but I needed to. I was getting my feelings hurt by comments made both directly towards me and indirectly and just thought it was silly that I was opening myself up to be upset. I do miss knowing what's happening in my friends lives and we very rarely get to talk in person and pretty much never talk on the phone so it's like I've literally just disappeared.

So I'm sending out the following slightly cryptic messages to some friends...

M.T. - I hope you and your family are having a happy and blessed Easter! I wish we could find some time to get together and talk!

R.U. - I feel like I haven't seen you in FOREVER, we need a Target shopping trip!

R.S. - Not sure what to say other than I miss you!!!

D.M. - I feel like at this rate we won't see each other until after our kids graduate from high school! We need to plan a playdate very soon!!!

Salon

I got to go to the salon yesterday and get my hair dyed. I had tried something new and gotten blonde and red highlights put in it about 8 weeks ago. I liked them when I first got them because the red was super bright and the blonde was a nice shade but within a week they were faded to pink and a brassy blonde. I got them touched up, at no charge, and the same thing happened. So I waited as long as I could and went to have my hair dyed back to my natural color. Well things didn't go so well! My blonde pieces started turning a strange shade of greenish brown and when she changed the color she was using my hair just wouldn't take the color. If she did too much my hair would have just broken right off and I'd be back to a super short cut, which I'm trying to grow out. You can only see a greenish hue in certain lights so it's not so bad I guess. I go back in May to get it done again. I cannot wait until it's over and I will stick to my tried and true box dye. I like myself better as a brunette.

3 days!

Today is the 3rd day of potty training boot camp and we are making progress!! As long as the girls are naked they don't have accidents and they only had one accident when they were just wearing underwear but when they're wearing clothes they forget unless you remind them. Both of them did #2 in the potty today! I haven't changed a diaper in THREE days except for the diaper that they were wearing overnight. No diapers for 3 whole days! I have had 1, 2, or 3 kids in diapers for the last 5-1/2 YEARS. I have changed diapers every single day for the last five and a half years. When the twins were born Evan still wore diapers so we had three kids in diapers! I can't believe that we won't be buying diapers and wipes all of the time any more. That's around a $50 a month savings. It may not be exciting to my fellow blog readers but I am bursting at the seams! :-)

On a totally different topic, I posted earlier about mulching around the big tree on the property line today...well tonight the neighbor whose property backs up to ours was letting her Grandson dig in our mulch. She was walking her pitbull and just watching her Grandson dig in the new mulch. When she was done walking the dog she screamed to her Grandson to "Get the hell in the house" and flicked her cigarette into the mulch. Nice. Um, can we move now?!!

It's on!

The house is officially on the market as of today. It's going out to all of the potential home buyers tonight via the internet. We need all of the prayers that we can get that we get a fast, acceptable offer!

We mulched today and tried to finish making the outside of the house as great as possible. We mulched the garden, big flower box out back and around the big tree at the property line. We've taken a load of furniture and other misc things out of the house today and got rid of them. I am going to have a HUGE load of things to donate to Goodwill/Church at the end of today or tomorrow. If anyone local needs any toys let me know, we may be getting rid of something that you could use!!

I am trying my best to not get my hopes up about selling because, well it's going to be HARD! Especially with some houses that recently went up for sale really close to us, including one foreclosure. We have some houses picked out that we want to look at if we start to get some showings. I am beyond excited to have a big fenced in yard for the kids, a 2 car garage for Matt's tools and my car!! A finished basement so we can have a real playroom instead of our dining room being a playroom! Oh, and a master bath, I'm so looking forward to having a master bath! I'm also looking forward to feeling settled. We feel like since we've been here we're in limbo just waiting to move. I'm looking forward to decorating how we like instead of in neutral colors and things that will appeal to the majority of buyers. I could go on and on!

I am trying to take comfort in believing that everything will happen when it's supposed to happen, and according to His plan. I truly believe that we didn't sell last year because we weren't supposed to. I now know that if we had sold last year that we would probably have made a mistake in the area that we moved to. I just need to try and stay patient!

The three p's

I don't think that I've said "pee, poop, or potty" more times in one day as I have today. I was supposed to be finishing getting the house ready for showings but had a full time job asking about the three p's all day long with Maddie and Leah. They've done rather well. Not excellent but not awful. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and by the end of next week we'll be in business. I can't keep doing what we were doing any longer. They won't leave their clothes on, no matter what I do. Backwards footed pajamas with the feet cut off come right off at night thanks to a second set of little hands to help out. As soon as I leave the room they take their diapers off.

Potty

This weekend is dedicated to potty training. The twins are proving to be MUCH harder than Grace and Evan were. We only have one super short errand to run today and other than that we're staying home and these two munchkins are going to be potty pro's by the end of this weekend! Or at least I'll try....

Oh, and Matt is working Today and tomorrow...maybe he'll be off Monday. Maybe. Sunday marks the start of the 5th week of this shut down.

Nope

Well Matt won't have off until at the earliest Sunday. Seriously, cut us a break. Ok - enough of that.

Grace has school today until 2pm. It's a snow make up day, which I think is silly for a preschool to have a snow make up day but it is what it is. It's messing up our Friday plans but I'm determined to figure out a way to work everything out.

Ending?

Could the turn around be ending? Could it be?? Matt could possibly start 6 (SIX) whole days in a row off starting on Saturday. Oh I'm so afraid to get my hopes up.

Today is our super crazy day ~ school, groceries, home, school, lunch, swim, gym with trainer (LONG run today - oh boy!), home, dinner, shower/baths......and Matt won't see the kids at all today.

Sober

It's really sobering to wake up with a headache so bad that you can hardly move without wincing to remind you that Mom's don't get sick days. And this Mom definitely doesn't get sick days when her husband has worked 23 out of the last 25 days. Both Matt and I are ready to collapse, for different reasons. For him, it's from getting up at 3 am, driving an hour and a half, working a 12 hour + shift, driving an hour and a half home, and doing it all over again with every other night adding that he stops at the gym for about an hour and 15 minutes on his way home. For me, I'm mentally exhausted, being pretty much alone with the kids all day every day has really taken it's toll on my sanity. I have already reserved my special padded room for when he's finally off of this shut down and back on shift again. Speaking of the shut down, Matt has been the upgrade boss during most of the shut down and I'm so proud of him. Yesterday he handled bringing the unit back up to running and did awesome! I'm such a proud wife! ;)

Today is a field trip to a train museum for Grace, and I'm taking Evan with us. To be truthful, I do not want to go, I remember going when I was a kid and it was boring then...I can only imagine how bored the 4 and 5 year olds are going to be and what destruction they can get into...

SIGN!

We officially have the "hot air balloon sign", as the kids call it, in the front garden advertising our house for sale. We haven't signed all of the paperwork yet, I have to go over everything with Matt and then drop it off at our Realtors office. I have to choose a day to officially list the house in the MLS system for it to go out to all of the people searching for houses through other agents. I'm not quite ready for it yet, I have to get the closets cleaned out with winter clothes packed up and replaced with spring/summer things, some furniture removed from the living room/dining room, and the basement cleaned up. I hope to have it done by the end of the week, and for the house to be listed in the system no later than next Monday.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning and scrubbing the front porch to get the green moss off of it. I also washed off the entire front of the house. Matt power sanded and painted the basement door. I have to get mulch still to mulch the Gardens and around the big tree in the back yard.

The Realtor really wants us to put some money into the back bathroom but I don't know that it's worth it. For there to really be a difference to people, we would need to invest no less than $1,000.

Monday - MONDAY!

Grace was so excited to go to school this morning in flip flops! I painted her toes this morning and then put summer nail decals on them, they're too cute! All of the kids are excited to get outside and play when it warms up a little more this afternoon.

I'm waiting for Matt to get home from taking Grace to school and I have a few errands to run. Grace loves when Matt takes her to school alone. Matt was up and out the door to the gym by 5am this morning. He has lost more weight and is now down 36 pounds!

I want to get out by myself for a little today but all of the kids want to go out and about with me so i'll see if I cave and take them...I'm such a softy.

OFF!!!

Matt has off tomorrow!! The kids and I are so excited!! I'm trying to figure out how to cram the most into one day and still save time for fun in the awesome weather we're supposed to be having tomorrow!

My to do list keeps multiplying by leaps and bounds. Some of the items include -

Repaint the trim in Grace's room

Clean out all of the clothes closets

Remove Storm Windows

Sand the basement door and repaint it

Replace the trim on the basement windows

Wash the front porch

Mulch the garden

Seed for new grass along the side of the house

Go to Home Depot to get an idea of how much it'll cost to re-do some items in the bathroom & put a fence up

Figure out how to fix the entryway wall

Decide if the hutch is staying or going, if staying - then decorate it!

Clean out the basement

Take donations to Goodwill/Church

And the list goes on.....

The kids are in bed now and I just want to sit down and enjoy the peace and quiet but I better get started on that to-do list! :-)

Facebook and Wrong

If you're looking for me on Facebook, I deleted my account.

And I was wrong on the last post...I was paying the rest of the bills last night and we actually spend a few dollars shy of $1200 on gas over the last 30 days. OMFG. It makes me SICK! Just more incentive to get the house as good as it can be and MOVE!!!!! Tomorrow will be filled with painting and trying to keep 8 little hands out of the paint!!!

F*CK THE PRICE OF GAS

With Matt working every day, driving more than 100 miles a day to NJ and back, we spent...ONE THOUSAND and EIGHTY-EIGHT DOLLARS IN GAS OVER THE LAST MONTH. That's $1,088. Granted, that includes the gas that I use also but I don't go very many places. I am literally sick to my stomach. Where's the Pepto?!