New transmission anyone? August 26, 2009

Oh me, me! Pick me!

So last Thursday, as we were driving home after our first day of Classical Conversations, my car started acting all wonky! When I would push the gas pedal to accelerate, it would barely move and then all of a sudden it would “catch” and race forward. Then whenever it was changing gears, it felt like the bottom was going to fall out of the car! So Friday morning, I called Ford and made an appointment to bring it in. But first I had to go to my follow up eye appointment. And before that, I had to drop the kids off at Miriam’s. Well, that was an adventure in itself. Rick & Miriam’s driveway is a rather steep hill and I actually thought about parking at the top because I wasn’t sure if my car would shift well enough in reverse to get back up the hill. I should have gone with my intuition, because when I tried to back out of the driveway, that car wasn’t going anywhere! Luckily my brother was there and did about a 4 point turn with the car to get it up the hill. I made it to the doctor’s office and finally made it to the Ford place. I really wasn’t sure if I’d make it there or not.

So everything gets situated and the rental car people come to pick me up and take me back to their office to get a rental car. The guy takes my driver’s license and is filling stuff out in his computer, when he says, “Did you know that your driver’s license is expired?” What??! No I didn’t know that. And now I can’t rent a car. So he drives me to the nearest DMV office. Of course it’s packed with a 2 hour wait. I can’t do that, so I called my brother and he was going to pick me up. The rental car dude drives me to a gas station half way between Clermont and my brother’s house. When we stopped at the gas station, he called his boss back at the office to tell him what was going on. Well the boss says they’ll rent me a car anyway and give me a “new” expiration date on my license. So 2 hours after dropping off my car, I finally got the rental!

And I finally got a call from Ford yesterday saying that the transmission was completely broken and they were going to be repairing it. AND it’s all covered under the extended warranty that we got when we first purchased it only 3 1/2 years ago! Woohoo!

Picking Pineapples August 20, 2009

Ok, I have yet another renewed commitment to blogging. Who knows, maybe I’ll stick with this one.

 

Did I ever mention here that I’m homeschooling Amelia? We made that decision a few months ago and began doing the A Beka curriculum with her. It’s been amazing to see what she’s already learned. About that same time we also decided to enrol her in the Classical Conversations homeschool program. Today was our first day doing that program. It was interesting and we have a lot to learn before next week, so wish me luck… oh and wish Amelia luck too.

 

The first thing they did in class was to have each child come up in front of the class and introduce themselves and tell a little bit about them. So it was Amelia’s turn and she gave her full name. Then the tutor (that’s what they call them instead of a teacher) asked her what was her favorite thing ever. Since she’s been talking nonstop lately about her Cinderella party that she’s going to have on her November birthday (she’s apparently been planning this for a while because I had no idea about it), I figured she’d say her favorite thing is princesses or something like that. Oh no, not my Amelia. She stood there for a couple of seconds and finally said, “Picking pineapples.” I just burst out laughing as did the rest of the kids and moms. I think she has officially established herself as an odd duck!

 

One nice thing about the program is that it is currently meeting at our church. I had been planning to go to the one in Clermont and so I’m glad I only have a 7 minute drive now instead of 30 minutes! After classes, we all go outside and eat lunch at the picnic tables and the kids have a chance to play on the playground. I let my kids go over there without me since there were plenty of kids running around. At one point, I took a look over and there was 2 year old Jack climbing up the metal ladder thing all by himself. By the time I looked over, he was almost at the top (probably about 6 feet in the air), so I bit my lip and held my breath and just let him keep climbing. I wonder how long it will be before we’ll be calling 911 for him.

Are you a superhero? April 17, 2009

Amelia and her Daddy were having a conversation the other day. I’m not exactly sure how it all started, but at some point they started talking about being a superhero. Here’s the rest of their conversation:

Daddy: Am I a superhero?

Amelia: You’re almost a superhero.

Daddy: What do I have to do to be a superhero?

Amelia: You just have to save the world.

 

Well, then, if that’s all there is to it, you’d think there would be more superheros, huh?

 

We started gymnastics classes yesterday. Amelia is in the Tiny Tots class  and Jack and I are in the Mommy & me class. For Jack’s class it’s pretty much just a time to play and learn to take turns. Amelia seems to really be liking her class and it gives her a safe way to jump on stuff without killing herself.

 

Last Friday (Good Friday), the Orlando Cooleys went to Ft. Pierce to visit the Ft. Pierce Cooleys. The Ft. Myers Cooleys were also there. It was Mawmaw’s birthday, so Amelia was very excited. Since we were staying in Orlando for Easter, we had our egg hunt while we were down there. Here are some pictures from the day.

Here’s me showing Jack where to find the eggs:

 

Ted installed a tire swing while were there, so everyone had to have a turn on it:

 

Daniel went a little wild on the horse swing:

 

Here are some pictures of Daddy and his kids:

Here is Mawmaw and her cake:

And finally some of the grandkids.

All of them after the egg hunt:

On the swing:

And Mawmaw with the younger 3 grandkids:

Not much March 15, 2009

Not too much going on around here. This past Thursday, the kids and I went to Sea World. We have season passes, so we try to go once a week during the cooler months just for the morning. We usually see the dolphins, penguins, sea lions and the whale and dolphin show. But this week, Rick, Miriam and all the kids happened to be going during Elisabeth’s spring break. She works at Discovery Cove and gets a few free tickets to Sea World out of that. So they all got in free. Amelia was so surprised to see them when we walked up. Miriam took her and Jack off to see the penguins and I got to ride some roller coasters!!

Then after we all watched the whale and dolphin show, we headed over to the kiddie section. They have several rides over there including a roller coaster for kids. This year, every time we get close to Sea World, Amelia will start asking if she can ride the roller coasters since she can see them from far away. I have yet to convince her that she has to be really tall and really old to ride those roller coasters. So when we got to this roller coaster, she was all excited because she could ride it. Well, Jack was being cranky, so I stayed with him while Amelia went on the roller coaster with Marissa and Dalton. After I got Jack settled down, I was able to run back over to the roller coaster just as it was about to take off. And I got there just in time to see Marissa and Amelia getting off the roller coaster without having gone on it. Amelia wasn’t screaming, but she was kind of freaking out and losing all of the nerve she claims to have about going on roller coasters.

So after she got off we all went on the tea cup type ride they have over there. She loved that. Then we went on another kind of fun ride that she loved as well. After that one, we kept trying to convince her to get back on the roller coaster and try again, but she was having none of that. So Marissa and Dalton went to ride it and Amelia and I were going to watch. As we were standing there, I kept trying to convince her to ride it and eventually something I said clicked and she agreed to go on it as long as I held onto her and as long as it wouldn’t go too fast. Well we rode it and after it was all done, she said, “That was fun!” However, she didn’t want to ride it again.

While Amelia was riding all of those fun rides, Jack only wanted to play in the water section they had. So we stripped him down to his diaper and let him go for it. He loves playing in water and had a blast putting his hand into the shooting fountains.

 

Yesterday, I met up with a someone I’m friends with on an online message board about scrapbooking.  We met her at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney. Here are a few pictures from then.

This is Melissa (the friend), her son Kieran and Amelia inside Planet Hollywood:

Here are Jack and Amelia playing in the water fountain outside:

If you look closely in the picture above, Jack was in the process of turning himself around so he could just slide right into the water fountain and play. Well, this was his reaction when I wouldn’t let him do that:

Amelia and Kieran:

Melissa and I:

 

And last, but not least, here are a few more scrapbook pages I’ve done recently:

Duct tape really does fix everything! February 23, 2009

Warning: This story is not for the squeamish!

 

So today started off just like any ordinary day. Then the unthinkable happened! When I pulled into the driveway after having gone to the Y and Publix, there was a black snake slithering across the driveway! Oh, I almost puked. So my silly first reaction was to push the button to close the garage door. If I hadn’t done that, it probably would have kept slithering to the other side of the yard. But I guess the noise spooked it and it slithered right into the garage.

So I left the car running with the kids and groceries inside, grabbed the shovel and went over to our makeshift work bench. The snake was freaking out and just slithering wherever it could go, but was too fast for me to chop its head off! The way the makeshift workbench is set up, the snake was able to hide out under a board out of my reach. I probably tried to get it to come out for 10 minutes or more. Then I realized that the kids needed to get out of the car and so did the groceries.

So I unloaded all of that and went back outside to figure out what to do with the snake. After conferring with Daniel on the phone, I decided to trap the snake by stuffing the hole he was in with towels. I even put heavy cans of paint on top of the towels so the snake couldn’t get out. And like a dummy, I closed the garage door because I didn’t want someone breaking into our house.

Here’s what my trap looked like:

Then at naptime, Daniel called to ask me how things were going. So I confidently walked out into the garage, around the car and immediately started freaking out. I told Daniel that I had to call him back. Again, my first instinct was to open the garage door. This freaked him out again and he went back into the work bench area, but in a different section this time. So I took my car out of the garage and began my snake stakeout! I got a chair and the ax and waited! That stupid thing poked his head out of his hole at least 5 times and eventually ducked back under the board the same amount of times. So again after conferring with Daniel, I proceeded to cover his new hole with… wait for it… duct tape!!!  And here’s the picture of my second trap!

Later in the day, again after talking to Daniel on the phone, we decided that I should try pouring gasoline into the crack that you can see just in front of the duct tape above. So I did, not realizing that the gas might interfere with the adhesive on the tape. And then the tape started moving! Oh man, did that gross me out something awful. But the snake couldn’t seem to peek its head out  from under the tape, so I lifted it with the tip of my ax head. And I saw the snake stuck on the tape. Again, I was grossed out, so I put those paint cans on top of the tape and waited for Daniel to come home. Luckily, he made it home before 11 tonight!

So when he got home, he reluctantly pulled up the tape with ax in hand and this is what we found!

I think we were both prepared for the thing to suddenly jump off the tape and wriggle up our legs or something, but it was as dead as a doornail! After convincing Daniel not to throw the thing into the bushes again (now that’s a whole other blog post and it’s a whole lot grosser), the tape and snake are now in the garbage can waiting for pickup tomorrow! So like I said… duct tape really does fix any situation!

It’s freezing! January 22, 2009

Literally, as I write this, it is 32 degrees outside! I think it got down to 26 or so last night. They said on the news last night that it hasn’t been this cold in 7 years! Today is a day off from the Y, so I think we’ll just spend it huddled up inside! Although I really need to run to Target to get a couple of more shirts for Jack and some bananas.

 

On a totally unrelated note… I thought I’d mention how I’ve decided to quit paper scrapbooking altogether. A little over a year ago, I got really burned out on scrapping. I didn’t have any motivation for about 6 months. Then one day, I looked at some old scrapbooks and really enjoyed reading the stories I had captured, so I decided it was high time to start scrapping again. BUT, I had no motivation to pull out a bunch of paper supplies and mess up my desk anymore than it already was. So I decided to try digital scrapping again. I’ve still only done a handful of pages since then, but a couple of weeks ago, I gave all of my paper scrapping supplies away… and I haven’t missed them at all. So hopefully, I’ll start doing more pages and posting them here. I just bought Photoshop Elements and hope to get well acquainted with that in the near future.

Starting again January 20, 2009

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting up with the blog again. I was looking at some of my posts the last time I wrote on here, albeit infrequently, and I really enjoyed seeing those glimpses into my life and remembering some thoughts and feelings that I might have otherwise forgotten. And lately, these kids of mine have been coming with some pretty funny stuff that I don’t want to forget in my old age, lol. So here we go again. I’m going to try and post here as much as I can remember. It will most likely be boring, but it will be here nonetheless!

Trying to write more May 30, 2008

I’m really going to make an effort to write more on my blog, even if no one reads it. I think I mentioned once that I’m a blog stalker… which means I read several people’s blogs, but rarely comment on them. So anyway, my point is that one of the blogger friends I stalk is really very good about posting on her blog frequently. So my plan is that every time I read her blog and she has a new post up, I’m going to make a new post on my blog. And maybe eventually, I’ll have something to write about.

 

Anyway, today is just another boring Friday. The kids and I went to the YMCA this morning. They were having an hour and a half long master class today, so I worked out from 9:00-10:30. That was exhausting! I’ve also been incorporating a running program into my workouts lately. It’s called the couch to 5K program. It’s supposed to get you able to run a 5K in about 8 weeks. I really, really hate running, so I thought maybe if I eased into it with this program, it might not be so bad. So far I’ve completed 2 weeks and it’s really not that bad. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sucking wind by the end, but hopefully that will get a bit better. And I do feel good after doing the running.

 

Nothing much else is going on around here. We’re just going to be hanging out at home this weekend, I think. Daniel will be cleaning and organizing the garage and I’m not sure what I’ll be doing aside from chasing after a couple of crazy kids and running a ton or errands at naptime.

 

Speaking of those crazy kids, here’s a picture I took of them yesterday:

My, my, my May 23, 2008

So, um, my last post here was on April 4th, huh? Well, I like to plead the fact that my life is very boring, so there’s nothing to write about! Does that work?

 

Oh well, I guess, I’ll post an update as of now. The only thing we’ve done lately out of town was when we headed to Ft. Pierce over Mother’s Day weekend. Amelia and I went to a mother/daughter dinner while we were there. She did really well even if she didn’t eat anything. Luckily someone volunteered to keep the nursery during the speaking part.

 

So then, I got really brave and decided to take her to the mother/daughter dinner at our church here the Tuesday following Mother’s Day. And again, she did very, very well. During this dinner, the speaker spoke while we were still at our tables, so I was kind of nervous about keeping her quiet during that, but she discovered a cup of lemonade and proceed to “sip” on that during the whole speaking time. I say “sip” because she hasn’t quite mastered the art of drinking out of a cup without a lid yet. So she sat there holding the cup, sticking her tongue in it! It was quite funny!

 

Here is a picture of the two of us at that dinner:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that, we’re just enjoying the warmer weather and the pool. We’ve doing some updates to the house recently so we can enjoy it to the fullest. This is the longest time we’ve lived in one place since we got married, so we’re not really used to actually “living” in a house. For instance, I recently bought coordinating accessories for the kids’ bathroom and for the guest bathroom. They look really nice now!

 

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll write more in another month and a half. Haha!

I’m a week late April 4, 2008

Jack’s birthday was last Friday. I can’t believe my baby boy is already a year old! In many ways this year has flown by and in many other ways it has just crept along. He still isn’t walking yet, but that’s ok. He’s started standing by himself, but once he realizes what he’s doing, he usually falls right down. He still only has 4 teeth and he loves to show them off. They seem to be coming in as wonky as Amelia’s did, so I can only imagine what our orthodonist bills will be in the future.

 

We had two birthday celebrations for Jack. We had an early birthday party for him at Mawmaw & Pawpaw’s house in Ft. Pierce on Easter Sunday. It’s nice that we planned our children’s birthday’s close to major holidays when we’ll be visiting Mawmaw and Pawpaw. Then we had Miriam and the kids over on Friday (his actual birthday) for some pizza and cake.

 

Below are some pictures from Easter, the birthday party and the second birthday party.

 

Family picture:

The hunt:

 

 
Now for Mr. Jack!
He’s such a cutie pie:

 

Here’s the cake:

 

Singing happy birthday to him:

Opening presents:

 

Being cute with Daddy:

Eating the cake.
Give it to me Dad!

Not too sure about this:

Getting into it finally:

 Singing Happy Birthday again:

Trying to pinch the cake:

Yummo:

Being cute and silly in the curtains: