We Must Be Crazy-Another Dog

Yes, I'm sure my husband and I are just a tad bit off our rockers. LOL

We have 5 kids, which a lot of people who just meet us don't believe when we tell them. Then on top of that we have a BUNCH of dogs. I say a bunch because I'm not even sure of the count right now, but we DO have more dogs than kids.

Then...we went out and got this...


Yup - it's a French Bulldog. I'm actually starting a little blog about our adventure of raising a Frenchie for the first time after all our experience with pitbulls and about having a house dog for the first time and about having a dog we can actually enter shows with for the first time. We'd love to do shows with our pits too, but there are no UKC shows in Hawaii so when my husband started getting interested in that part of the dog world, we had to find something else to work with. The frenchie is it.

Yikes 103.3

It's late, I just got home from the ER. My youngest daughter, who is now 7 months old, had a fever of 103.3 degrees tonight. She was warm on a few occasions last week, but always, the next day or two she was back to normal. She isn't congested, isn't coughing, has no runny nose, is "peeing and pooping" fine, has a normal appetite, and has been acting pretty normally as well.

But after her afternoon nap today, she woke up feeling warm. I didn't think too much of it because she had been fine in the morning and she was still acting quite normal. But after dinner I picked her up to nurse her whole body, arms, legs, hands and all just felt way too warm for my liking.

I had my oldest daughter get our thermometer out and took her temperature under her arm. It was 101.7. I knew her temperature would be up, but I wasn't thinking it would be that high. I also know that taking a baby's temp under the arm usually gives a read out of about 1 degree BELOW actual temperature, so that's when I decided to just take her in and see what was going on.

The ER dr said her ears, throat, and chest were all fine. He didn't see any rashes on her and basically didn't see anything "alarming" that he could attribute her fever to. They gave her some medicine for her fever while we were there and by the time we left her temperature had gone down a bit to 102.9.

We were discharged with instructions to give her fever reducing medicines to help with her temperature and to follow up with our regular dr in a few days. It's a bit annoying that the ER dr couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. But at that same time, I'm glad to know that it's not something really serious and I wasn't ignoring/missing some sign that my baby was really sick. So now it's time for bed for all of us. It's times like these I'm glad I don't work outside the home - I'm thinking tomorrow will be a rest/take care of baby (and mom) day.

I Got a New Toy

My husband bought it for me as an Anniversary gift, but he let me pick it out because he figured he'd probably choose the wrong one (he was right by the way - he told me which one he probably would have bought). So he just took me to the digital camera section of the store and told me to pick one. I thought we were going there to look at TV's again (LOL) so there was still a bit of a surprise factor even though I picked my own gift.

I have a smaller convenient, easy to carry camera, but this is a bigger, "can do more things" camera. Here's a picture I took with it. Nothing fancy, but I like it because my other camera, while it has a nice big LCD screen, does not take pics in black and white.


...and yep, this is the baby...4 months in this pic.

5 months in this one - so fast


I'm loving the camera so far. Plus it helps to have cute subject matter. ;)

It's a Wedding

My sister recently got married which means it's one of the rare times you get to see my in a dress. I actually had a softball game (against one of the toughest teams we'll face in the regular season) at the same time as my sister's wedding, but since she IS my one and only sister, I, of course, missed the game to be there when she got married. After all, we do hope this is the only time she'll be getting married. It's not that there's any reason it shouldn't be, but the divorce rate is just so high nowdays it seems like you just never know what's going to happen.

Anyway - this is the second time I've missed a pretty important softball game due to someone in the family getting married. Last time it was my husband's sister and we were in the wedding so I couldn't be there late. I don't know what the deal is with people getting married during softball season AND not even thinking of asking me about my schedule LOL. I mean, I only need about 3 hours of the day. A wedding during any time of day accept those 3 hours wouldn't be a problem, but somehow they always manage to schedule their ceremony and reception right smack dab in the part of the day where I have to miss my game.

In any case, my sister's wedding was nice. She looked beautiful. Since it's a special occasion, I'll let you see the picture of me in a dress.

The Bumbo is So Cute

That's a picture of my daughter in her new Bumbo Seat. It's such a cute seat for her to be in during the times of the day I can't hold her and laying down in her crib or play pen is just too boring. It seems like she doesn't quite know what to make of it just yet, but I think she likes the new perspective. It just so happened that the only Bumbo left at the store I went to was pink, but it does come in other colors too.

The box says that it's for ages 3 months - 14 months. My daughter just made 3 months earlier this month, so we'll get "full" use of this Bumbo. My 3-year-old son has put his butt in it a couple times when his sister wasn't in it. I guess he wanted to check out his sister's cool new chair. I was surprised that he actually fit in it. I was a little worried about my daughter fitting in it when she got older, but if my son can squeeze his 3 year old booty in it, I'm sure she'll still be able to sit in it at 14 months.

Anyway - One of the cute things I noticed was her checking out her feet...see?

Give Me My Sunglasses

One day I bought my son (age 3) Cars sunglasses. My son LOVES Cars. So anyway, he was wearing all over the place that day while we were running errands. Eventually, we got hungry and sat down to eat lunch at a restaurant (indoors). While we were eating, my son took off his new sunglasses and put them on the table. His oldest sister (age 11) decide to make trouble and steal the sunglasses and put it on her head.

My son didn't really notice, but I saw what happened to so I told him, "Your sister took your glasses."

He looked over and saw his glasses on his sister's head and immediately demanded her to give them back. However, my daughter was in a rascal mood, so she was giving him a hard time. He tried to take them off her head, but she moved away. He wasn't up for her games, so he points toward a window and tells her, "Hellooooo! Can't you see all the sun in my eye?"

My daughter and I were cracking up laughing. We were indoors and there was certainly no sun in his eyes and he hadn't worn the glasses the whole time we were in the restaurant. He didn't put them on after he got them back either. He just put them back on the table and kept a closer eye on them.

I Want "Awfuls!"

One morning my oldest daughter wanted Eggo's for breakfast. So I put a few in the toaster oven for her while she started on her school work for the day (she does distance learning). My 3-year-old son hears the toaster oven timer ticking and decides to check it out. He sees the Eggo's in the toaster oven and, since he can't quite see over the counter and into the toaster oven very well, he asks me what I'm making. I tell him, "I'm making waffles."

He gets all excited and says, "Ooooh awfuls! I want awfuls!"

Happy Halloween

Just dropping by to wish everyone a safe and Happy Halloween. I don't have all my Halloween pictures yet, but I just wanted to share how my husband went to work today. Please keep in mind that my husband normally has black hair.

Fun Site for Expectant Parents

You know how toward the end of a pregnancy friends and family like to make guesses about baby's birthdate, weight, gender, and other stats? Some couples actually run pools for their family or friends at work. We'll, I just found out about a website that allows you to keep track of all these guesses so that there is no mistake about who guessed what and who came the closest to the actual stats. Also, this site gives you a way to determine a winner (by point system) if you don't already have one. They have both a free and paid version, but for me, the freebie version is enough.

So, just for fun I set up a guessing game for my friends, family, and internet acquaintances. To see what a game looks like or to play mine, click on the banner below.

Just One Week To Go

...until our family vacation! The kids are getting excited and I can't wait to go. My husband is already counting down the number of work days he has left before we leave on our trip to Disney World. My son LOVES watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and I think he'll go NUTS when we get there and he sees all the Mickey stuff. Of course, he doesn't like the guy walking around in the Chuck E suit at Chuck E Cheese, so maybe he'll be a little scared of the characters walking around, but I think he'll enjoy everything else.

I'm taking a 1GB memory stick for my camera AND my husband also wants to take the video camera. Luckily they are both kind of small so I don't think we'll have a problem carrying them around. I was planning on downloading pics to my laptop each night, but I tried to do that recently and for some reason my laptop isn't reading my card anymore, so I may just have to hope I have enough space or just buy another card while we're there.

The only part of the trip I'm not really looking forward to is the plane riding - it's a pretty long trip from Hawaii. Making that trip with 4 kids is going to be interesting, but we bought another portable DVD player to help keep them all occupied. OR one to keep them occupied and one for us adults to watch. We'll see how it works out. Oh and wish me luck sitting in that plane seat for hours on end while 6 1/2 months pregnant. Hopefully I'll be able to get comfy enough.

Got Our Disney Tickets!

WooHoo! We've been more or less planning this trip since we came home from our last trip to DisneyWorld 3 years ago. The kids were asking when we'd go back and we told them we'd go back in 2007. Each year they asked about it. Each year they counted how much more time until it would be 2007 and we'd get to go back to DisneyWorld.

Soooooo....We've had the airplane tickets since we did our taxes back in March. We've had the place to stay since last November because own a timeshare there near Disney and that's the earliest we could make the reservation. Last week I reserved our rental car, and today I finally picked up the last of the DisneyWorld Park Hopper passes we need for the trip AND I also picked up tickets for our family to go to Sea World in Orlando as well. I'm getting so excited. We fly out on the 6th of September, but won't get into Orlando until Friday afternoon.

I don't think the kids realize how soon the trip is. They've been busy with school. We've all been busy getting our house ready to sell and soon we'll be busy packing things up because we're in escrow and will hopefully close at the end of September. Since we don't want to have to worry about coming back home from vacation and moving, we're planning to move out on Labor Day weekend. I know the time will go fast and I better get started with our packing. Oh, and that reminds me....I also have to pick up a few more bags for luggage. One of ours broke and now we have one more child than we did the last time and the other kids are bigger so their clothes will take up more space. Eek - I better make me a "to do" list so that nothing slips through the cracks.

Interesting - PeterAnswers.com

Have you seen the website PeterAnswers.com? My brother-in-law showed it to us the other night. It was a trip! Of course, he knew how to work it so it was cool. If you just go there and type in questions in won't work, but if you know how to do it, then you can probably amuse friends and family for a while with that website.

Using Google - you can easily find out how to make the "magic" happen there. But basically, you enter in a petition (Peter please answer:), then in the question field below you enter a question.

For example, if you're mom was with you, you could type in "How many children does mom have?" When you hit the enter button - the correct answer comes up! IF you know how to make the magic happen. It's kind of cool. I think I could get away with it for a while because I kind of type fast, but you also helps if you know a bunch about the people you are trying to trick. ;)

Anniversary Dinner on Saturday

It's my 11th Anniversary this Saturday and DH and I have reservations at a wonderful restaurant that we love, but can only afford about once a year. LOL Not quite as flashy as last year's Cruise in the Bahamas, but that was our 10th and you have to do something special for that right? But I'm very much looking forward to it to dinner! I love the Caesar Salad that they make right there at table side and the Banana Foster dessert too! Again, at table side ~ can't wait. DH asked me what I wanted for our anniversary and I told him NOTHING! The dinner together is both our gifts. :)

Also, last week, he told me that he wasn't going to work on Saturday, so I told him, "Okay, then you can work next Saturday." We always try to get in one Saturday per pay period. Anyway, one day he came home and he told me, "I'm not working next Saturday either." Of course, I asked him "Why?" He says, "It's our anniversary! I'm not working that day. Aren't husbands supposed to be the ones to forget anniversaries?" LOL

The Kids Are On Break

Today is the first day of my kids' spring break. I believe they are off for about 3 weeks. Soooo, we went to the library yesterday and got books to read. As I type, the tv is off and they are riding bikes, putting up tents, and riding scooters too. I also have lots of blank paper for drawing! We will plan at least one day to the beach some time this break. This week it's been a bit rainy though, so hopefully the weather clears up and we can get a beach day in. The kids have been bugging to go, so we may as well take advantage of their time off and head to the beach during the week when it's less crowded. Hopefully I can keep my sanity - lol, but that's why we've got lots of activities for them to do and if the weather cooperates and clears up, they'll be able to play outside every day. If not, then we'll all go nuts staying in the house all day.

Who Are You Today?

The reason I ask is because today, March 5th, is Multiple Personalities Day. What do you do on this day? Are we celebrating that people have Multiple Personalities? Is it more of an awareness day? Hmmmm....maybe today I'll be Mila.

No, but seriously, I can't imagine living with something like that is anything to joke about. Do you know anyone who has multiple personalities? I've never really met anyone like that. I hope no one I know ever has to deal with that because I can't begin to imagine what it must be like. I hope none of us has to find out.

On a lighter note, tomorrow is National Frozen Food Day. Who comes up with these things? Why are we celebrating food in our freezer? I much prefer fresh food, but I suppose it does make life easier and I admittedly love Bagel Bites. Plus, if you're talking about celebrating ice cream as a frozen food, I have to say I'm all for it. In 1984, Ronald Reagan proclaimed March 6 as Frozen Food Day and called upon the American people to observe this day with "appropriate ceremonies and activities." What exactly constitutes "appropriate ceremonies and activities?"

Why Are Shower Curtains So Expensive?

Goodness. I went out and bought a new shower curtain today. We usually just change the liner, but I decided to finally buy a new curtain because our old one had two broken holes and didn't hang up the way it's supposed to. I didn't realize how expensive shower curtains could be - $30! It's a piece of vinyl with a design on it that doesn't even really do anything. I suppose regular curtains /drapes cost just as much though. Anyway - I guess if I had customers like me (only purchase once every few years - that's about how often I buy a shower curtain) I'd try to get as much out of them in one crack as possible.

While on this topic of shower curtain cost, I came across the Forbes article which shares the Most Expensive Household Items for 2006. In that article, it talks about someone spending $6000 on a shower curtain! Eeek - $30 looks like a bargain next to that!

Swimming Cell Phones

Has your cell phone ever gone swimming? We had DH's nephew, who is 16 months old, for about a week (long story). One night he was cruising with us in the living room watching TV. One minute he was right there with us and the next he was in the bathroom playing with the water in the toilet. During the time we were caring for him, we tried to keep the bathroom door shut and the toilet seat down, but one of my girls must have used the bathroom and forgot to shut everything.

Anyway - I heard him in the bathroom and rushed over there to get his hands out of the toilet. When I got there I realized he was splashing the water with an object. As I got closer to pull his hand and what he was holding out of the toilet, I realized it was DH's cell phone! Of course it was too late to save it. We immediately opened it up, wiped it down, and removed the battery and SIM card, but the phone never did work again. Of course, this had to happen at about 7:30 on a Saturday night when all cell phone stores are closed. And, as luck would have it, DH was expecting some phone calls that weekend. So, we found a place close by that sells those "unlocked" phones and went to pick one up. Cost us over $200!

Why didn't we just wait and use insurance on the phone? Because when we bought it (the Motorola Sliver), we were told that no insurance could be put on that phone. *sigh*

Oh yeah - then we find out that that's about the 3rd phone our nephew has taken swimming in the toilet. I so wish the cell phone companies would come up with water proof phones. But then they'd lose money on people like us who are forced to buy a new phone because ours went swimming.

I Don't Want a Job

Only after I went to a job interview did I realize how much I don't want to go back to work. I only went because the position sounded interesting, there was a chance that they'd pay me want I'd ask for, and it was very close to home. So I figured I'd at least go in and learn a little more and see if it's something that may work out. After the interview, I was all worried that they'd call me back. Don't get me wrong, in another time in my life, I'd probably take the position and accept the pay they were offering. But right now, with young kids and coaching softball, it doesn't really fit in. If they offered me the position, I would have had a tough decision to make. Do I handle the extra stress (finding good child care, arranging for drop off and pick up of the kids at day care, school, softball, etc) in exchange for the extra money it would provide each month? It was either that or tell them that I'm declining their generous offer (what I asked for was a bit higher than what they'd normally pay). That would be kind of awkward too.

I was actually quite relieved that they didn't call me back to offer me the position. I think they did like me, but were concerned about scheduling (I told them I'd have to leave early sometimes for softball) and I think maybe they didn't really want to pay more than what they budgeted (their loss IMHO - LOL). I really don't want to go back to work. Financially it may be a bit challenging right now, but we're working on debt (getting rid of that would help significantly) AND I'm getting back on track with my business.

Anyway - the COOLEST thing was that when I was talking to DH about it the other night he told me, "I don't want you to go back to work anyway." I've always been the one telling him that it's better for me to be home, but at this point, with 4 kids, 2 cars, a bunch of dogs, and a mortgage, I thought maybe he wanted more help bringing in the bacon. But he clearly understands the added stress on me and on the kids and on the family in general with scheduling, housework, and everything else if I go back to work. He said that unless I'm 100% sure that I want to work again, don't go back. Until that time comes (if it ever comes) he said to stay home. I am so very thankful for support from my husband in this area because I know there are a lot of women who don't quite get that backing.

City, Country or Somewhere In Between

Forum member, Tishia, started a thread about a week ago telling us how she missed living in the big city.

Some parents who grew up in small towns say they left and would never go back, until they had kids that is. Now, many of them would rather their kids grow up in a smaller town.

Then I know other parents who grew up “in the boonies” and they say they were bored as kids because their friends only came over on special occasions since it took their parents so long to drive them to and from other kid’s houses. Those parents want their kids to have more things to do, without spending all their time driving them around and they choose to live in the city.

I never have lived in a big city, nor have I lived in a small town. I call the ‘burbs home. I love living in the suburbs. I can have my cake and eat it too. I get a taste of the city when I want it without having to drive far and I don’t ever worry about not having anything to do because we’re out in the country.

I think it’s a good mix for our boys too. They have plenty of friends in the neighborhood to play with, but should they want peace and quiet time (more so when they get older probably, right now the more the merrier to them), they can have it at home without hearing the city and all the hustle and bustle that goes with it right outside their window.

Do you live in the city, country, or somewhere in between? Did having your kids make a difference in where you lived or want to live?

Played Mad Gab - Fun Game

Have you ever played that game Mad Gab? We played it with my in-laws on New Year's Eve as we were counting down the New Year. It's hilarious!

Teams work to decipher groups of unrelated words into real phrases before time runs out

Dew Wino Hue becomes, for example, "Do I know I know you?"

We played it men against women so that was fun. I was doing pretty good at the game so my brother-in-law, who is the one that brought the game, said to remind him that next time we play, I'm in his team. LOL

So what family games are your favorites? I heard Balderdash is awesome too. I have to get that one!