The Wildly Eclectic Me

And if it is? Does that mean they're going to be all angsty and sulky? Cause really I just can't deal with a decade of angsty and sulky! I did that in the 90s. ;)

It makes me cry my eyes out! Nothing says holiday cheer like the impending death of a loved one! Woohoo!!! Now THAT is a Christmas Song! This is the season of hope people! I don't wanna hear sad stories on the radio. I don't need to be reminded to take care of my fellow man just during the holidays. I do my best to do that year round.

Finn has started having full blown conversations, and it's so much fun! Nicky didn't talk nearly this early so it always surprises when Finn belts out a full sentence. There were two particularly adorable conversations we have had. The other day a box came in the mail with Finn's Christmas present from his Uncle Dave. It was a BIG box with a picture of the gift on the side. So I hauled it in and set it in the middle of the living room, and Finn immediately toddled over to it and began his exploration of the box. When he'd perused all of its sides, he looked up at me and said very clearly, "Mine?" I smiled and nodded, "Yes, it's yours." Finn got this GIANT grin on his face and kinda did a little happy dance, then he said, "Mama, OPEN IT! It's MINE!" It was so cute I almost collapsed. hehehehe Then the other conversation was this morning. He sleeps in bed with me, and we have another mattress on the floor because inevitably Nick...

I've been a busy girl lately so I Haven't been blogging as much as I should, but here is what I have been doing... Taking Nicky on the Santa Train. Once a year this excursion train takes kids on 1 hour rides complete with Santa, Mrs. Claus, Elves, and the Santa Secret Service. We had lots of fun. Finn was supposed to come too, but he wasn't feeling well that day so he stayed home with his Daddy. Taking the boys to see the lights at the square. We went to the Christmas parade and the lighting of the square and recently went back when there were less people. Nicky rode the camel. And his favorite pony. And Finn rode a pony for the VERY first time. He was a litttttle unsure about it. Nicky and I decorated our very first Gingerbread House. It was lots of fun and was VERY messy! I'm going to be cleaning up sprinkles until the end of time! Oh and I managed to finally get Finn's stocking done! Only a year late. ;) Oh well, he has one now. hehehe What has everyone be...

Before I had Nicky, I lost a baby early on. Though I have no reason to, I believe that that baby was a girl. It was too early to have been able to know for sure of course, but you know sometimes a mother just has a feeling. I didn’t have a feeling either way with Nicky, but I was pretty sure from the day I found out I was having him that Finn would a boy. Now let me explain that I have the belief that lost babies get a second chance to be born. I just can't believe in a higher power that wouldn't give them a chance to live. If that clashes with anyone’s religious or personal beliefs, then you may feel free to stop reading now, but that is what I believe. That does not mean that I do not believe in the grief that comes with losing a baby. I do believe in it and have experienced it to the core of my very being. That being said since I also believe that my first baby was a girl, I have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that she’s waiting for the right genetic comb...

Jennifer Shirk over at Me, My Muse and I is having a Virtual Christmas Cookie swap . The details are on the site. There is a COOKIE PRIZE! Now really shouldn't that be more than enough reason to take part? hehe Here's my recipe. This is one my Mom made occasionally when I was a little girl. I know why she only made them occasionally too, because really you can't eat just one. They are so delightfully melt in your mouth good that you look down and suddenly every cookie you made has miraculously disappeared. There name is perfect too... Spellbinders 1.5 C Flour 1.5 t. baking powder 1 t. soda 0.5 t. salt 1 C brown sugar 1 C butter 1 egg 1 C oats 1 C coconut 1 C chopped pecans 0.5 C crushed cornflakes Combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and beat. Gradually mix in dry ingredients. Stir in oats, nuts, coconut, and cornflakes. Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten with glass dipped in crushed cornflakes. Bake f...

We're all sick again. Head cold that moves into the chest thing. I've been hacking up a lung for 2 days and before that for a couple of days my head was so stopped up I was completely off balance. Finn has been sniffly since like tuesday of last week, but he started coughing and wheezing yesterday so to avoid an emergency room visit I took him to the late hours at the pediatric clinic. Good thing too because we were definitely headed for another emergency room visit if I hadn't. He is now on steroids, antibiotics, and an albuterol inhaler. So I've been having to hold him down with a mask over his face every four to six hours to breath in his meds. That's almost as fun as holding the new kitten by the scruff of the neck to put meds down his throat and drops in his eyes. Did I mention that he was sick too? Oh yes, nd eye infection likely caused by a kitty virus. Great way to welcome him into our home. He at least doesn't bite and scratch me like Aine wo...

I tweeted this, but it was so good I had to blog it so it would be easily accessible to tease my son with for years to come. So my hubby just got an Xbox360, and he has been downloading demos left and right. One of the downloads was a hunting game. One of those Cabella's ones. They'd been playing it or a while, and I came in from cooking and sat down on the couch and I hear this conversation take place. *There is a fawn standing next to a buck on the screen* Nicky: Daddy! Don't shoot the baby deer! Bryon: I didn't. Nicky: Are you going to shoot his Daddy? Bryon: It's not his Daddy, Nicky. It's his uncle. (Apparently killing family members is okay so long as they're not in the immediate family...) *Bryon shoots and kills the buck* Nicky: Daddy, why did that baby deer run away? Me under my breath: Ummm...cause you shot his Daddy? Not too long later when they're shooting bunnies I hear... Bryon: Next we're going to hunt cougars. Nicky gets this re...

Okay, yesterday I got my prelit tree out to decorate...only it wasn't prelit anymore... Now it's been going down hill for the last couple years, and though I tried my best to track down the problem it was a cheap tree and I couldn't figure out what was going on. So I ripped all the lights off the tree. *and a few branches unintentionally - OOPS* Then I only had one string of lights so I draped the tree in net lights before stringing that one on. After that the boys and I decorated it. It looks...special. :-D And it's leaning, but oh well I'll just have to keep my eyes open after Christmas this year for a nice prelit tree on clearance. Cause I'm not gonna spring for a new one this year. I also did all the monthly shopping yesterday that I hadn't done already. It really wasn't that much because I'd already been to Sams and I have instated a clean out the pantry and freezer rule for the month. They're too darn full! Like if the Apocalypse ...

I've been entertaining for two solid weeks now. First my MIL came in to visit from Denmark for a week and a half. Then Thanksgiving. So that's why I haven't been blogging much at all or visiting anyone else's blogs. I will try to do better. :-D I hope everyone had a delightful Thanksgiving! We had lots of fun, but now I'm verrrrry, verrrrry tired! Think I'll take a nap! :-D

He's five months old and one of the sweetest cats I've ever met. We got him this morning, and he's already made himself a part of our family. We adopted him from the NWA Animal Rescue . There are lots more kitties if you are looking for a new family member. He is cautious of the boys, as well he should be, but he wants to play with them too. They love him so much! We've renamed him to Shadow. The name he got from the rescue was Booker...alas the name Booker out of Nicky's mouth is Booger. Shadow works much better. MIL is here visiting and she thought we were saying Charon. Which if you ask me would be a kick butt name for a black cat, but Bryon refused to let me change his name again. hehe

A woman's best friend has a dream about a positive pregnancy test, the next day she has a dream about a positive pregnancy test - a ridiculously complicated one mind you with four sets of lines, and then the woman's husband has a dream that she's pregnant. The woman then assures her husband that she's not having sex for the rest of the month so that these dreams do not come true as she's NOT ready to be pregnant again yet. Husband: You're really not going to have sex with me this month? Wife: Yes, It's not going to happen. I REALLY don't wanna get pregnant right now. Husband: You're not going to get pregnant just because we have sex. Wife: *stares at him* How do you think it happens exactly? I couldn't make this stuff up.

I did a photo shoot back in September of my boys dressed up in their Halloween costumes, and it turned out so cute that I wrote a story (in limericks) that went along with it. I just got the book I made of it from Lulu, and it's super cute! And guess what! You can buy it too. ;) Now don't everyone storm the site at once, because we don't want to crash it. Everyone take your time. hehe Seriously though, I'm very pleased with it. I hope my boys feel the same!

*Nicky does something annoying and Bryon tells him to get down.* Bryon: Nicky! That's a red card! Nicky tries to climb up again and again and again. Bryon: Nicky! I said you have a red card you can't get back up here! Nicky: But, Dadddddddddyyy, it was only a yellow card! Yes, he did let him up again after that. LMAO

Well after much delay and rescheduling due to illness we finally had Nicky's birthday party on Halloween. It was lots of fun. I made him a castle cake with orange turrets (since it was Halloween) Let me tell you something...it's HARD to cover those darn towers with fondant! The princess castle that I made for the girls was SO much easier! Oh well! He loved it and that is all that matters. :-D The second picture is courtesy of my darling Lishy who is the most awesome photographer on earth. :-D

Well my little goblins are still coughing a little and sniffly, as am I, but they're feeling MUCH Better. I'm so INCREDIBLY thankful for that!!! For your Halloween reading pleasure, I'm going to share a short story I wrote a few years ago for a creative writing class. No, I can't stay away from the paranormal. I'm completely incapable of it! Enjoy, and have fun Halloween night! Fire and Water b y Lesley Speller A small group of little girls laughed and whispered as the skinny, brown haired girl climbed out of the water and padded quickly over to where her friend Alice was standing. She had just swum faster than she could ever remember swimming before in her life. Her coach had stared at her stop watch in amazement before patting her on the back and telling her that they would have to talk to her parents about training for the Olympics...

Despite the horrors of the week...(See yesterday's post) Weight: 229.8 (Yeah, normally I'd just round that up, but it's in the 220's so I'm clinging to it. hehe) Loss: 1.2 lbs Total loss: 42.2 lbs

I'm just taking care of sick kiddos. Finn and Nicky started getting congested noses Friday. Saturday they started coughing. Sunday Finn started coughing worse, then started having trouble breathing. Sunday night I took him to the ER because he was having such a hard time breathing his lips were getting blue tinged whenever he coughed or cried. We got there about 11pm. Finn was in pretty good spirits. I actually told him at one point that he should have the decency to act sick since he was costing me big bucks. We waited about 45 minutes to get into triage. From triage we went directly back to the back. Which kinda terrified me because normally your wait in our ER is from 6 - 8 hours. His oxygen saturation was 92%, his breath rate was 49, his pulse was super high, and he had developed a fever that he hadn't had all day. We waited for a little while in a room that I swear was at least 90 degrees! Great for a little boy with a fever lemmie tell you! The nurse's nam...

Found this over on Katie J's blog and it looked fun. Outside my window... the mountains are a patchwork of beautiful fall colors I am thinking… I can't wait for my hubby to get home with my gyro I am thankful for… my wonderful kiddos and awesome husband and fabu friends In my kitchen… it smells like Nicky's popcorn I am wearing… argyle knee high socks, grey capri workout pants, and a lavender top (LMAO This was hard to admit! I did just finish running though so I deserve a break from style.) I am creating… a book called Dark Waters I am going… to eat my gyro as soon as my husband gets home! Hush! I'm focused! I am reading… Night's Rose by Annaliese Evans I am hoping… to be at my goal weight next summer (I stole that one from Katie J, but I am hoping that too!) I am hearing… Nicky telling me he wants to watch El Perro and El Gato and Finn snoring Around the house… there are things I need to do...but I'm not gonna. One of my favorite things right now… chillin wit...

Okay, so there have been lots of pictures surfacing of Suri Cruise wearing high heels . Look, if you've got a problem with this, then you've obviously never been or raised a fru fru 3 year old girl. They probably got these as part of a costume, since Halloween is just around the corner, and she wouldn't wear anything else. I don't know if you've ever had a 3 year old, but they can be VERY insistent when they want their way. And seriously people, you've got to pick your battles. She might have wanted to wear the whole flapper Halloween outfit out, and they compromised on the shoes. It's not like she was indecent! I remember once I made a "skirt" on my sewing machine when I was a little girl. It consisted of a piece of stretchy fabric that was sewn on one side to make something akin to a mini skirt, but ummmm let's just say it wouldn't have been appropriate to wear in public. So my mother obviously didn't let me leave the house in i...

No Loss. Bah. The only excuse I have is I ate too much and didn't work out enough, but in my defense everyone was sick. I'll do better next week!

Okay, I couldn't resist Wordle when I saw it. So I had to make a word cloud of Blood and Violets. If you've never done it, then I highly recommend you go play with wordle.

Katie J gave me this an obscenely long time ago, and I'm a very unorganized blogger so I've completely forgotten until now to put it up... :-D So here are my 10 Favorite Blogs: The Crazy Woman Inside Me Our Simple Life Vixen's Den A Piece of My Mind Daisy Dexter Dobbs Me, My Muse and I The Apron Goddesses Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom Not Always Right Anna J Evans

For Collin, son of Fun Size and grandson of Vixen , and for the little one I lost five years ago next week.

Weight: 231 Loss: 3 Total Loss: 41 Yayyyy! I'm back to where I was before summer. How did she lose 3 pounds in one week you say? With no special diet or exercise? I'll tell you! Thanks to the handy dandy stomach flu! You can do it too! But I don't recommend it! Felt like I was gonna die! And we ALL had it! Nicky got sick Thursday. Finn and I got sick Saturday and Bryon got sick Sunday! Have I mentioned how completely through I am with everyone being sick??? Cause really it's getting old! I didn't run Monday, but finished about half of my run yesterday before Nicky pushed Finn and he landed on the Busy Ball Popper leaving a big mark on his poor forehead. He looks like Voldemort attacked him! Poor little guy! I almost finished all the painting in my bathroom. There are a few things that need to be touched up still. And I've GOT to finish making the fondant for Nicky's Castle cake for his party. Hell it's already Wednesday. I probably need to star...

Okay, we had a very slow leak in our bathroom behind the faucet. I kept accusing my husband of just splashing the wall when he showered, but when the dry wall started getting damaged and started to mold I had to admit that in fact there was something wrong... So out of sheer fear of the cost of a plumber we decided to give it a shot ourselves. First I did some research on how to cut through dry wall. Then I did some research on how faucets are made. Then I went in to check what kind of attachment our faucet had and when I was checking the faucet basically fell off in my hand. So upon further investigation it was made obvious that the solder had gone bad. Actually it had probably just been badly soldered from the beginning at that joint. So then I was like OH CRAP! This is a copper pipe and when I started looking at copper pip installation it became obvious that you have to solder to fix a joint on a copper pipe. Well here's the thing... In order to solder I'd have to co...

Current weight: 234 Loss: 1 Total Loss: 38 Bah not much loss, but at least it's something. :-D We've finally got everyone all mostly healthy in our house. There is still some coughing and sneezing going on, but no one is really ill anymore. Stupid viruses. Started today off with a run! Go me! I figured the baby woke me up so I might as well get it done. My hubby is working his booty off too. I'm very proud of him. He has a hard time getting up in the morning, but he's getting up when his alarm clock goes off and working out. Yay, Bryon!

As you might recall, I decided to go as a flapper for Halloween this year. Actually I might be a Fairy Goth Mother, but I am now prepared to be either. hehehe So here is my flapper wig as well as my great grandmother again who was my flapper inspiration. I love costumes!

I made my boys some lunch of the ever popular Kraft Mac and Cheese and put it on their plates, then I put Nicky's on the table and Finn's on the floor. I didn't want to deal with dragging out the high chair and between the puppies and I we can clean up any mess. So Nicky sat at the table and cleaned his plate pretty quickly and Finn was chilling on the floor eating. I was noticing, not for the first time, how well he used his spoon. Now Nicky knew how to use a spoon from the time he was pretty small, but he just really couldn't be bothered. He would much rather just cram the food into his mouth. Not now, of course, but when he was Finn's age. Then Finn looked up at me and then at Nicky sitting at the table and stood up. He picked up his plate and walked over to the table and put his plate up on it then went back and got his spoon. He then proceeded to eat his food from the table even though he wasn't even tall enough to actually see his plate. hehehe He t...

Current Weight: 235 Loss: 2 Total Loss: 37 I've been very lazy this week. I didn't workout much at all because there was still so much heavy duty cleaning and rearranging and house purging to do, and then we all got sick. I'm nursing a migraine today so I'm not feeling very verbose. Hope you're all doing well!

Okay, so everyone here is sick. Nicky got sick starting Thursday night and was sick until today. Bryon got sick Saturday and is just getting better, and Finn and I got sick yesterday and are at the peak of it right now. So I was sitting here on the couch feeling miserable and turned to my hubby and said, "I feeeel sooooo bad." His response was, "Oy! The whining!" "Hey, you whined much more than me yesterday!" "Yeah, but you said to me 'Oy! The whining!'" Which is entirely true. I did. So then he went on to say, "The only one in this house not whining right now is Finn." So we look at him and he says, "Whinnne." Like he actually said the word whine. He doesn't talk just a whole lot yet so then we all cracked up. T'was pretty darn amusing.

Because it's soooo true! My hubby and boys got it for me for my birthday. They know that I tweet all of their antics. Muhaha Sometimes when I'm sure they would rather I not!

Weight: 237 Loss: 0 (I can explain!!!) Total loss: 35 You see it was my birthday, and there was pizza and German chocolate cake involved. Mmmmmmm It was good! I also didn't run yesterday because I was moving all the furniture in my living room into my bedroom and all the furniture in my bedroom into my living room. Sounds weird I know, but it totally works! Which is definitely more than it's share of exercise all on it's own! My muscles are sure sore! I'm going to use this week to redo my motivation collage. The old one is somewhat out of date as it included such things as "Buying cute clothes in regular stores" and "Getting a full body family portrait on the beach" Check and check! For the most part, I don't need to shop in plus sized at all anymore, and I just love our family portrait on the beach! So I'll work on my new motivators this week and make a collage. I'm also going to redo my weight prize awards sheet and repost all th...

Now I think I'm going to be following the trend of the net with weekly weigh in's on Wednesday, because Wednesday just seems like a good time for it. It's as far as you can get from the decadence of the weekend so it's probably a good indicator of actually weight loss and not fluctuation because you were naughty. ;) However, this week I didn't do it on Wednesday so I'm going to do it today and start on Wednesday's next week. Weight: 237 Loss from Monday when my gung ho start back started: 4 Total loss: 35 (need to lose 6 more to get back to where I was and then 87 more to my overall goal) Thanks for all the support you've shown me! *HUGS* I love you guys!

It's only temporary. :-D

So as you know I've been working on the whole getting myself into shape thing for some time, but it's only been mentioned very vaguely here. I've decided to come out of the pantry about it, so to speak. I'll do weekly weigh in's and stuff. The whole reason that I didn't mention it here was because I was just ashamed of how much I weigh. Well it doesn't really matter how much I weigh exactly since you can look at me and tell I'm fat...I mean duh! LOL So there is now a weight ticker at the bottom and link on the side there to my spark page. If you do SparkPeople please be my friend. I have no friends. :'( hehehe Well I have lots of friends. They just don't use SparkPeople so that I have friends on there. hehe So if anyone does then please be my friend. :D I had gained back some weight because I was a lazy bum this summer, but I'm ready to kick it all. I need to lose 89 pounds from where I am now to be at what I think would be my ideal we...

Nicky comes RUNNING out of the bathroom. "Mama, Daddy, the potty is blue!" I had put in one of those toliet bowl cleaners earlier so I knew just what was up. Me: Oh, that is so neat! Go ahead and go potty and shut the door so Finn doesn't go in there. Nicky: Daddy, did you see the blue potty? Bryon: Yes, I did. And did you know that if you pee in it you can make it turn green. Nicky: Really??? Bryon: Yup. Me: Yeah, yellow and blue do make green... LMAO

I am now officially a soccer mom. Yes, I have the minivan and everything. ;) Nicky had his very first soccer practice today. He did a great job. He did get a liiittttle distracted there at the end, and he didn't quite understand that he was allowed to kick someone else's ball when they started playing a little match. I mean, after all, we'd told him repeatedly to only kick his ball and not other people's. We'll have to work on that. hehe On other notes, I planted a red delicious apple tree in the field today, where another tree had been that died. We'll see how well it does. I hope it doesn't take too many years before it gives me some nummy apples. The field project is coming along. I would say we've got about 1/3 of it useable now. I filled in some holes today. There are a few stones that really need to be removed so I don't have to mow around them, but they are so huge that I think it might require a backhoe to get them out of there. ...

But look! I do have a husband! And isn't he handsome?! He's very picky about pictures though. That's why he's been absent from my blog until now. ;) There is the whole brood. That's my Mommy and Daddy. Aren't they adorable? I love this picture! I can't believe he caught me running! I thought he was taking Nicky's picture, and I looked up and he snapped both of us. I had to chase that child all the way up and down the beach like four times, because he took the command "run down there and run back" VERY seriously. LOL Oh well, running is how I lost the 40 pounds that made me willing to get photos taken, so it seems appropriate. ;) My sweet boys! The picture were done by Rusty Amos of SGI Photos . He and his wife are really nice people, and he's a great photographer. Check him out if you're ever down on St. George Island. I highly recommend him.

Me: I love you, Nicky. Nicky: *Stares at his Leapster* Me: Hey, Nicky. I love you! *still being ignored* Nicky, do you love me too? Nicky: *Glances up* Yeah. Bryon: Nicky, if you love someone and they tell you that they love you then you say I love you too. Especially if it's a girl. Me: *forseeing this causing major issues for him at some point in his life* Yes, but only if you love them too. Bryon: Nicky, do you love goats? *I have always wanted pygmy goats and we saw a bunch of cute ones at the fair last week* Nicky: *looks up for the first time and grins* Yeahhhh, goats are cuuuuuuute! Wow, so his love of me ranks WAAAAY below his love of goats. He at least looked up when we asked him what he thought of goats. LOL

Finn discovered the joy of chasing sea gulls. Very slowly chasing sea gulls. So in the interest of entertaining the boys, we fed them to lure them down for chasing. ;) There were a few times he got SO angry because he couldn't catch them. hehe I don't care what anyone says. I think sea gulls are adorable! While we had to stay inside because it was raining Nicky played a lot of Gameboy. Finn took to sitting next to him and watching him play. He even likes to play with his hair while he does it, much to Nicky's irritation. I think Finn's going to grow up to be a world famous hair dresser! He's obsessed with hair! His own and other peoples! We bought a skim board and tried to use it... The operative word being tried. It's much harder than it looks! But doesn't my little surfer dude look ADORABLE! Silly little guy! Finn took a big time liking to his net and wouldn't even let go of it long enough to sleep! The last morning that we were there th...