Project Basement

I was informed that my 6 readers are sick of looking at the “Lego Cake.”

So, I’m sharing why I haven’t been posting.
Have you ever tried to paint a basement full of crap while taking care of 3 kids? Its one of my best paint jobs ever…
We had some water damage in our basement last September due to a water line leakage from our refrigerator.
Here are some pictures of the basement while Ricardo was fixing the walls…

Here are the after pictures… Don’t you love the neatly organized baskets full of toys? I wonder how long they’ll stay that way? Look at all that room for Wiiing!I bought these at Ikea to make this…
The kids love this pseudo train table. I plan on getting one more and making more of a box with a piece of plywood on the top. They always keep things neatly organized in these bins! I love the new frisee carpet. Its really going to hide stains!

Obviously the walls are a little barren, but I’m working on it.

Lego Cake

I finally found my digital camera, so I thought I’d share some stuff with you.

I got this idea off of the internet for Nathan’s birthday cake. He really wanted this cake, but it was a little ambitious for my 2 hour time limit.
He had to settle for my really amateur version of a lego cake.
I started by baking a 9×13 cake. After it cooled I cut it into thirds. One of the thirds I cut in half. I transferred the pieces to a foil lined baking sheet. It took a lot of red and blue food coloring to make the icing a vibrant lego color. My cutting board still has stains on it.
After the cakes were iced, I found the roundest big marshmallows in the bag and cut them in half. After that I iced them and stuck them on the top of the cakes. It was really messy, but I didn’t have time to smooth it out very well. I put the left over icing in a piping bag and wrote “Nathan” is 5!
I also made a set of pink and purple legos for my cousins daughter.

How Can You Not Laugh?

Oliver has two new little sayings, one of which is “shut up” and the other one is “poop head.”

Usually when he uses those cute phrases I explain that its not nice, blah, blah, blah, but a couple of times I had to walk away because I didn’t want him to see me laugh.

One day he was walking around the kitchen telling everything to “shut up,” like the table etc. When he got to the fridge he saw a picture of the kids sitting on Santa’s lap. He saw and said,”shut up, Ho Ho.”

Another time he was overly tired and smacked me. I told him to tell mommy he was sorry. He said, “sorry, poop head.” In the straightest face I could manage, I told him that was not nice to call people “Poop Heads.” His response was “poop head, poop head, poop head.” Lovely.

And last night we were saying prayers and as we got to …I pray the lord my soul to keep… he said, “I pray to  ‘poop head’…He knew he was funny, because he was laughing hysterically.

All this from a not even 2 1/2 year old.

A little note…We are going to be potty training after Memorial Day. Wish me luck!

Girl Night In

Ricardo is out of town again. He gets back tomorrow and then leaves on Monday again. When he gets back Wednesday, he will have been out of town 13 days out of the last 3 weeks.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging. I’d rather not have post after post of complaints because I’ve been the sole caretaker of my children for almost 2 of the last 3 weeks.

The other reason is that I’ve been catching up on a lot of projects around the house. I would have shared them with you but my digital camera is MIA.

I decided to treat myself to a girl night in (by myself) after the hectic day I had that started out at 6:15 am. (why won’t my children sleep in ever?) I had to have Piper Ann to dance class by 8:50. We were there until 10, and then it was off to Tball for Nathan. We were late because it starts at 9:45. After Tball I rushed the kids home, because my aunt and uncle took Nathan to the Cardinals game. After we said our farewells, my sister-in-law brought her girls over for lunch and a quick jaunt down to our duck pond to feed whatever would eat our bread. (A quick side note…As far back as I can remember, my wish when I blew out candles on my birthday was for a duck pond in my back yard. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe I am. Now I loathe the mosquito breeding ground 4 houses down from us. They always say, “be careful what you wish for!”)

After they left, the remaining kids went down for a nap. I decided to mow the lawn (which I haven’t done since I was still living at home with my parents), because I didn’t want Ricardo to spend his sacred time home doing lawn maintenance. Our slightly sloped yard proved to be a little bit of a work out. I have the BO to prove it!

As we waited for Nathan to get home, I cleaned up a little bit. Then I made dinner. We ate and headed to Home Depot to get a couple of flowers and then the grocery store to get a video for the kids and myself along with a couple other indulgences.

I got myself a bottle of wine, and a small container of Dulce de Leche “light” ice cream.

After the kids ate their novelties and watched their movies, I put them to bed and enjoyed my own “girl night in.”

I rented Juno and actually really enjoyed the movie. I was afraid I’d hate it because of all the hype. I think a lot of it was the references to things in the greater Twin Cities. On my 24th birthday when I was pregnant with Nathan, Ricardo took me to the Benihana that I’m sure “Paulie’ was referring to when he was talking about prom. I also used to shop at Ridgedale Mall, but I don’t think it was really Ridgedale mall in the movie.

Lets hope the kids have pity on my and sleep until 10 tomorrow. Ya right, eh.

Jesus Will Forgive You

We woke up this morning to liquid dog poop on the rug by the back door. Yesterday it was puke all over the dining room carpet.

Piper Ann said,”Daddy, did Murphy sh*t all over the place? (No, that wasn’t the word she learned a couple weeks ago. She’s known that one for a while). Of course this got a huge laugh from Nathan and got a repeat from Oliver. Luckily RIcardo didn’t really respond.

Due to the response she got she kept saying it. I told her to stop and she didn’t.

Finally, I said, “Piper Ann, Jesus doesn’t like that word.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No, he doesn’t so lets not say it anymore, ok?”

Nathan’s interjection,”But Jesus will forgive you if you do!”

Mommy’s very grateful for that.

HELP!!

So, somehow I got talked into teaching the 2’s class for VBS at the church we don’t go to. Its probably not even the church we would go to if we did go to church. My kids just go to preschool there.

This is where you come into play… I’m taking suggestions for songs, activities, and maybe crafts for 2 year olds. It doesn’t really need to be structured. Its more or less a nursery for kids of other volunteers.

Instead of commenting you can email me at ofebers (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Thanks in advance!

May Specials at Tangles n Curls

*These specials are only good with Olivia.

1. Free Haircut with any pedicure.

2. Free Haircut with any color service.

3. 20% off next service if you prebook your appointment.

The salon is located at the intersection of Dougherty Ferry and Big Bend. The phone number is 636-861-2875.

I Did It

As most of you know I work part time as a hairdresser. I used to work every Wednesday and Thursday. Every other Saturday and opposite Tuesdays. It doesn’t seem like very much (It usually only added up to between 10 and 16 hours a week). There was a lot more involved than just going to work. I had to make sure the house was semi clean for the babysitters, and have something prepared or at least planned for dinner. I was spending more time getting prepared to go to work than I spent at work, which meant spending less time being a mom.

After much discussion with Ricardo and my own mind. I decided to approach my boss about working only one day a week and every other Saturday. It seems almost pointless to work so little, but I love doing hair.

Its amazing how much less stress I feel and I’m so relieved!

Stay tuned to my next post for some specials I’m running.

Please Pray

Whoever it is that your pray to, please say a prayer for her.

Do Too, Do Not, Do Too, Do Not

…I was actually part of this conversation. Although Oliver walks around the house all day saying those words, except in past tense.
With a few preceding questions we came upon the topic of how people get cancer. I explained that there’s no way to prevent cancer, but there are things you can do to reduce the risk. I explained that not smoking would be one of those things.
Nathan,”Well you smoke mom.”
Now, I can’t completely deny this, because I used to smoke before kids. I have also been known to have one every great while…like 2 a year. However, I’ve never smoked in front of my kids.
Me,”No I don’t”
Nathan, “yes you do.”
“No, I don’t”
“Yes, you do.”
“Nathan, when did you see me smoke?”
“In the car when daddy was driving.”
Ok, now I know this never happened, because even when I was a “smoker” I never smoked in the car when Ricardo was driving, except on the very rare occasion.
“Nathan, that never happened. I don’t smoke.”
“Do too”
“Do not…”
Nathan, “Smoking is for LOSERS mom”
Fabulous