Shafted

I have a confession. One I am not proud of, but also one I am sure I'm not the only one that needs to fess up. First a little back story...

Growing up, my little sister always whined about "middle child syndrome" and how she was constantly overlooked. I admit now, it mostly just annoyed me. Being the second child, and one that had "special needs" during a good portion of my childhood, I had ample attention, even with being one of 5 children in the home, and couldn't see how her perspective could really be THAT different from mine. While making our 2009 Christmas card, however, I realized that there just might be something to her claim. We don't have a "middle child" so I still don't really know how valid her claim of injustice is as far as that goes, but I can say with some amount of certainty that in one way or another, when you have multiple kids, inevitably someone will get left out. I'm really surprised to say that this year it was Soni. Soni got shafted. Don't worry, she still got her fair share of love and attention, but we have little to no photographic evidence of it. While looking for pictures to include in the "collage" that became our Christmas card, there were exactly 3 pictures of Soni with her hair done all cute. I'm not sure how this happened, and seeing as how she is the "baby", I never would have thought it would be her to be neglected, but alas...

I suppose we could blame it on the fact that once you have 3 kids all meet the same milestones, the 4th has some tough competition. After all, how big of an accomplishment is it really to get a tooth in comparison to your older sister who is reading, or older brother who's a math whiz. I mean, come on! Step it up, sister!!!

So, I guess this is my public apology to my baby sister who was apparently right about our parents loving me more, who could blame them, right? This is also my public explanation to all those who receive our Christmas card in the mail and wonder why there's not a better individual picture of Soni on it. There isn't one. Plain and simple. For all those who may not get a card in the mail, here is what you are missing out on...

Black Friday

This morning I ventured to the Wal-Mart in Quinlan for the Black Friday sale. I usually don't do that, but this year they had something we needed, so I braved the crowds to spend our hard earned money. Yeah me. Here is some advice and observations from my trip.

• I thought about wearing some black spandex shorts to the store in honor of Black Friday. Unfortunately, I do not own any spandex shorts. Luckily for me and everyone else waiting for electronic items in the dairy section, a stout 50 year old woman with lots and lots of junk in the trunk wore her spandex shorts proudly.
  
• Bring your 10 year old child with you, and put them in charge of grabbing four things from one display. Be sure to load them up with Red Bull and Monster Energy Drink before hand so they have enough energy to fight off the middle aged man going for the same things.
  
• Don't be afraid of knocking someone over to grab a copy of Candy Land, even if it isn't on sale. Christmas is all about violence!
  
• Someone had a great idea that I wish I had thought of: Bring your two year old child to the store with you. Who doesn't like a cranky two year old that is awake at 3AM. The fun never stops!
  
• If your item rings up with the wrong price, the best thing to do is yell at the checker. It is their fault after all, and they did it just to tick you off.

There are no losers...

...except for the people that didn't win! Yes, that's right, Thanksgiving is here and the moment you've all been waiting for is FINALLY here! Admit it, y'all have been checking the blog anxiously every day, just hoping that someone didn't out guess you, right? Well, I must admit that you all did a cracker jack job of guessing, and so we came to a bit of an impass. Does it count if nobody got all the costumes right? We think it does. Here is a rundown of who everyone was, in the words of the children...

Soni: PIRATE PRINCESS. And may I add, the cutest little Pirate Princess that ever was. Her costume could also be described as: "quick, we still have groceries to get, and the kids are losing patience. Which do you like better, this one or the Garden Knome?"

Peyton: LION. Could also be described as: "What costumes do we have left in the closet from past years. Cool. This one is even his size!"

Dylan: "BUILDER". Also known as: "No, you said "builder" and we have everything we need to do that. It's too late to change your mind to robot now, son."

Andi: TAYLOR SWIFT. She is the reason we had problems with a theme this year. Ever since last year, when her best friend was Taylor Swift for Halloween, Andi began insisting that she too, wanted to dawn the curls, and "hippy" clothes, and be her idol. What goes with Taylor Swift? NOTHING!!! At least nothing that we came up with.

Which makes our THEME: "Dang! Halloween is in a week, and we still haven't come up with a theme. Does ANYTHING go with "Taylor Swift"? No? Okay, I guess we won't have one this year."

Which makes our winner, technically Heather, but I think she's disqualified since she talks to me every day, and knows me well enough to know that I would make it a trick question. So, Lady, you're prize is to help me make the items for the winner(s) we've selected. CONGRATS to you!

The real winner is actually a tie. I was AMAZED that LeAnn was able to come up with any sort of theme at all, with the Modge Podge of costumes, and then I was FLOORED by the way Allyson pulled them together, and made my husband hang his head in shame while I laughed out loud.
For this reason, you two shall share the prize, by each receiving a care package from me. Make sure I have your current address, and you can look for it in the mail in about a week.

!!!!CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Trick or Treat!

I know, I know, we are nearing the middle of November, and here we are just posting about our Halloween now. Lame, right? We'll try to do better. Now onto my account of the Halloween festivities.

This year, we ended up not going to the Ward Trunk or Treat, for reasons that elude me now. The kids did get dressed up to go Trick or Treating on the night of the 31st though. Cameron took the kids around the neighborhood while I stayed home and passed out candy. This has been the routine the last 3 years, which may sound unfair, but I've usually had good excuses. The first year we moved here, I took the kids around with the Buckley's (our good friends and neighbors) but by the next year, I was VERY pregnant with Soni, so I opted not to aggravate my "temperamental" uterus once again. Last year, I was having too much trouble with physical exertion, so Cameron took the kids around again. This year would have been my year in the rotation, but when I found out that Jordan (Buckley) had the flu, and would not be going Trick or Treating, I emphatically volunteered to stay home once more. I'm sure Cameron appreciated the chance to take the 4 kids by himself again this year, and I assured him that no thanks were necessary. Unlike most years, coming up with a theme was more of a challenge this year. In fact, I think I am going to offer a special Thanksgiving care package to the person who can name what each of my kids were, and how they all fit together as a whole.

CONTEST ALERT!!!

Leave a comment naming what each child is, and whatever theme you think they followed this year, and you will receive an entry into our giveaway, that will include, but will not be limited to, a PerfectlySPACED gift card, a candy treat of some sort (depending on the person who wins it), and at least one Holiday decoration to get your place ready for Christmas. If you can't find a theme, don't feel bad. In fact, it's so fantastic I'm sure nobody will get it, but take your best shot!

Without further adieu:

Andi

Dylan


Peyton

Soni

The kids Trick or Treating at our door.

I mainly added this picture so you can see Andi's bottom half since you couldn't see it in the picture above.

We'll announce the winner on Thanksgiving day.

GOOD LUCK!!!

You can't fire me...I QUIT!!!

How many people do you know that have been fired from a volunteer position? Well...now you know at least one.
How did this happen?
To make a long and horrific story short...I had multiple children. I should have known that would be the thorn in the PTO's side. (Or at least ONE MEMBER of the PTO's side) After all, if you have a kid in Elementary school, you should be able to spend no less than 3 whole days a week at the school if you dare to sign up for a spot (even an assistant position) on the PTO board, right? Turns out, when I signed up to be the "recycling coordinator's assistant" position, I was also signing up to be the "assistant" to no less than 4 other positions, as the recycling coordinator is Superwoman, with one child, an unemployed husband, and endless time on her hands to spend at the school.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE to volunteer at the school. I look forward to every Wednesday when Aubrey and I exchange babysitting so we can each spend half a day helping out in our kids' classrooms. I am just not willing to sacrifice my job as a Mommy to serve as a free personal assistant to someone else...
On Sunday we decided to go our separate ways.

Sorry Superwoman...guess it's time you flew solo.

Brad Paisley Concert

We were lucky enough to get to go to another concert this summer. On the 12th, we went to Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night" concert. (It even happened to fall on a Saturday night.) It was quite awesome. We've wanted to see him for a couple of years now, so we decided to do it this year, even though we'd already seen Rascal Flatts a few months ago. I'm glad we went. It was really fun, and we loved every minute of it. Here are a few pictures.

Here's our view of the stage. We had pretty decent seats.

This is how he opened his set. He came out alone on stage and sang "Start a Band", and then faded that into "American Saturday Night".

The visual effects were pretty sweet. He mixed his music videos with live video feeds and other stuff he made for the concert.

Now that we've seen him, Rascal Flatts, and Kenny Chesney in concert, we're left to wonder who to see next summer. They are the three groups we definately wanted to see. Now that we've seen them, who next? I want Bon Jovi to go back on tour and come to Dallas!

Nap Time

Sam found Soni like this the other day after lunch.

PB&J makes a good pillow.

We need your HELP!!!

Hello there Family, Friends, random strangers who stumbled on our blog thanks to links on other people's sidebars, or Google searches! As many of you know, we launched our own vinyl shop online a little less than 2 months ago, and since then, we have had a steady trickling of customers come. Cameron, who watches the Google Analytics religiously, is not too impressed with the amount of foot traffic to our site, so we began discussing some ideas for ways to improve on our site, and attract more customers. This is, after all, one of the ways we had hoped to pay off all of my medical bills from the past year. One of the things we want to improve on is the look of our site. As you may have noticed, the pictures of our items leave much to be desired, because as a rule of thumb, we do not Photoshop our items onto generic stock photo backgrounds, as we feel this is like lying to our customers. After all, the dimensions never look right, so there's no way for the customer to be able to tell how big the item really is in comparison to a sofa. We think that real photos of our items on display in people's homes would add elegance, style, and reality to our store; not to mention give people ideas on how the items could be used that they may never have thought of before. Why am I telling you all this? Because this is where your help comes in. So far, our attempts to lure our customers into sending us "customer appreciation" photos have failed, so now we are reducing ourselves to bribing you, our beloved friends and family. What can you do? For the next week, take a gander at our site, find something you like, and then email us at our business email address. Let us know what item you want, what color you want it in, and we will send it to you FREE OF CHARGE. That's right...FREE!!! The ONLY stipulation to this, is that you have to promise to send us a photo of the item (applied in your home) within a week of receiving it in the mail, along with a short review of your experience. I don't want you to gush over our customer service if you don't actually have to use our customer service, so I want you to review us based on shipping time, if that impressed you, or ease of application...anything, just so long as it is something you feel you would praise a total stranger for as well. Better yet, if you have a blog, and you want to post a "look what I just got" review of our product on your blog, we will send you a $15 gift card to give away on your blog.
If you don't like anything on our site, but have an idea for a custom item, let us know, we can design something to add to our shop using your idea, and send it to you free, with the same rules as above.
The other catch, is that this is really only open to family and friends. I can't afford to supply vinyl products to any random person who stumbles on our blog, claiming to be a friend of a friend of a friend, or the vet to my sister's neighbor's cat. If I can't remember you, sorry to tell you, you are not included in this offer.
If anyone wants to help out with more than one item, the first one will be free, and any one past that point we will charge you just the cost of the supplies...no labor or shipping. After all, we don't want to go out of business just trying to promote our business, right? On that same note, the free item can only be for the smallest size of that item that we offer. If you really want a larger size of that item, we ask that you just be willing to pay the difference.
YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT!!!

SO, get to it everyone! You have until next Saturday (September 5th 2009) to contact us with your requests. And remember, I'm not "Sami- who you have known since way back when" I am "Sami-Design team member for PerfectlySPACED vinyl decor and design" so my emails back to you will be all (or at least mostly) business.

*To easily access our site, just press the big green button with a "PS" on it on the right hand side of your screen, and enjoy!

Back to School, and such.

Today was the day! Don't get me wrong, I do love spending time with my kids, so it's kinda sad to have half of my children gone all day, but the utter joy of having two less kids to fight with each other all day, makes me giddy! Last year, when Andi started Kindergarten, we went as a family to drop her off, causing quite the spectacle. This year, we opted for a more laid back approach. We took the mandatory "first day of school" pictures, but then Cameron left with them at the same time he will every day, and dropped them off himself. He did walk them both in, to make sure they knew where they were going, and he plans to get off work early enough that he can pick them up and reacquaint Andi with the way home, but other than that, we treated it just like any other school day. My hope is that starting the routines from the very first day, will make it easier to follow them all year long. Soni had a bit of a hard time with it this morning since she doesn't seem to remember Andi going to school, but she was better before they even pulled out of the garage...so even that was manageable. I'm sure this will all be a different story when we drop Soni off at Kindergarten in 4 years, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

Here's how the kids looked this morning:

Dylan looking like quite the chick magnet for his first day of Kindergarten.

I don't think any shotgun will be big enough...

Can we go yet?

On another note: Andi had to have a clipboard for school this year. After having a LOT of trouble finding a clipboard that Andi approved, I decided I could make one cuter than I could buy one. With a plain brown clipboard, and a few other odds and ends, I was able to turn a plain brown clipboard into this:

The front

The Back

(You can't really see it, but it says "Andreia" the name she has decided she wants to go by this year...)

I hope her teacher doesn't regret giving me permission to spruce it up...

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL EVERYONE!!!

Happy Birthday to you...

...you live in a zoo, you look like a monkey...


As many of you know our "buddy" turned 5 on August 19th. With the hustle and bustle of back to school madness, we have failed terribly by not posting pictures. I guess it's not too bad, since it's only the 24th, but still...
Cameron came home early from work, so we could begin the festivities by going out to lunch at Dylan's favorite place...Pizza Hut. I can't remember what else we did, but here are pictures of his party:

Here is Dylan with all his birthday presents. He made out like a BANDIT!



Dylan loves puzzles! Have nooo idea where he got that from...(so hard to type sarcasm)


Obviously, I couldn't resist getting in on the fun too!


We also decided Dylan was old enough for Legos...

Soni, however, is not.

He got a LOT of new school clothes too! THANKS GRANDMA SLOAN!!!

Cameron loved showing Dylan how to actually build something with his Legos. This little beauty is a helicopter, that Dylan can now build all by himself.

We rounded out the day with some good ol' San Francisco 49ers cake. I know, based on where we live, we should be tarred and feathered...


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DYLAN!!!