The Test Subject

I have been very neglectful of this blog lately. Anyone who follows it, must think that we just don't do anything interesting. That's not true...we have a whole trip to the Dr. Pepper Museum that we have yet to post about, but I really don't have time now to argue with Blogger about where I want my pictures to go, so that adventure will have to wait. Until then, I have had this little gem of a "blogworthy" story in my aresnal for about a month now.
First I'll set the stage: I was "sleeping in" one morning during Christmas break. This was early in the break, because Cameron still had to go to work, but the kids were out of school. By "sleeping in" I mean it was not yet 8 am, because I am almost always awake by 8 am, if the kids haven't had breakfast yet. Anyway...here's the story.
I was just beginning to awake from my pleasant slumber, when I hear the sound of my bedroom door being opened, and no fewer than 3 little bodies scurry in. They did not, however, make a sound. I'm assuming this is because it was light enough in the room that they could see that their father had already left for work, but I can't be absolutely sure. I then hear 3 little bodies exit as soundlessly as they had come. I then hear the following exchange in the hallway:

Peyton: "Where Daddy?"
Dylan: "He already left for work." "Go ask Mommy for breakfast."
Peyton: "Me? No, you."
A few moments pass, where I hear several feet run up the stairs.
Then I hear my door open once again, and this time 4 bodies enter my room. (I can only assume that they had gone to get reinforcements in the form of their older sister.) I then hear Andi say: "Shhh, she's still sleeping. Don't wake her up."
They exited again, and I hear a few exchanges out in the hall that may or may not have included drawing straws to see who would be the best candidate for the job. I know I also heard a few words involving "But I'm hungry now!" but the memory has become a little fuzzy. Apparently after some deliberation, I hear my door open one more time, and the sound of two little feet scurrying accross the floor. Then I hear Dylan exclaim from the hallway to his croanies: "It's going to be alright...I sent Soni in!"
It was then that I lost it. I couldn't pretend to be asleep any longer. Especially since a matter of seconds later, my diaper clad princess climbed up on my bed, tackled me, and said: "HEWO, MOMMY!"
Should I be worried that my older 3 children so easily sent thier baby sister into "the lion's den"? Should I be even more concerned that my children view me as the grumpy bear that they must not wake from hibernation? Whatever their reasoning, I am just grateful that they have been well trained to wake up their dad...even if he is not.

Christmas came and went...

So, it's January. Christmas and New Years came and went and now we have to get back in the Work/School routine again. That happened quick. Christmas was uneventful at our house. Since we live so far away from everyone we just stuck around here, which wasn't too bad.

The kids enjoyed Christmas. Leading up to the big day, Dylan had his heart set on this big monstrosity of a toy called "Spike the Ultra Dinosaur". He saw a commercial for it on Nickelodeon, and was dead set on getting it. Why not? It's green and it's a dinosaur. Green is his favorite color, and he likes dinosaurs. It's perfect... except we had already planned on getting him a Leapster. He got a Leapster for his fourth birthday, but it came to a quick demise when he decided to wash it by submerging it in water. As you may know, when you submerge electronic stuff in water, it really doesn't work very well again, or at all. Anyway, we tried to steer him away from Spike, knowing full well that two days after Christmas, Spike would become less and less cool. Green can only get you so far.

I had told Dylan I wouldn't get him Spike for Christmas, so Dylan pulled a Ralphie on me and asked Santa Claus for it twice. (If only Spike shot little bb's out of his mouth, I could have given a "You'll shoot your eye out" argument. That could have been fun.) If he had wavered even slightly for a second I would have jumped all over anything else. We decided not to ruin his hopes and dreams of Christmas, so we got the huge frickin' dinosaur for him.

Dylan was super excited to play with Spike on Christmas morning. It was cool seeing his face light up as his Christmas wish had been granted.

Two days later....

Spike had become a whole lot less cooler than his older sister's Leapster. He has played that so much the last week that I've had to change the batteries in it twice. Spike? I haven't had to recharge him since the 27th. Now we have this huge frickin' green trip hazard that I am sure will one day kill me, either by becoming animated and going on a rampage, or by me tripping on it in the dark and being impaled by its huge tail.

Thanks Fisher Price for making that thing, and thanks Nickelodeon for advertising it. :P I'm going to look up your corporate headqurters on Google Maps street view and picture throwing tomatoes at your buildings. Take that, suckas!

Our other kids? Andi got the commandeered Leapster for Christmas, and had her Birthday party the next day. Noo more presents for 363 more days for you. Ha! She had her first sleep over for her birthday too, which she enjoyed. Can't believe she's 7 already. If I had any measureable amount of hair left, I'm sure some of it would be gray.

Peyton asked for a toy flashlight for Christmas. Luckily, Handy Manny has a little flashlight tool named Flicker. Thanks, Disney. Between that and Dora, our kids will be learning Spanglish at a reasonable pace. He might be able to tell the Mexican kids to turn off the lights by the time he's in Kindergarten. Muy Bien!

Soni loves anything Dora, so she got a stuffed Dora and a blanket. She was happy with it, and she's not stealing her sister's Leapster. Or Spike. In fact, no one is stealing Spike.

Here's a picture of the gang in their new Christmas church clothes. A handsome bunch of kids if I do say so myself.

That about does it for the Christmas recap. Yay. Hope your holidays were as enjoyable as ours.

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!