8 Things Tag

I was tagged by Carrie for this one. I love tag, but Im kind of slow at getting to them sometimes.

Eight things I'm passionate about:
1. My family and everything they do.
2. The Gospel
3. Triathlons
4. Photography
5. Taking time out for just me and the hubby
6. And on a related note....lol
7. Health and Fitness
8. Improving who I am and what I do

Eight words or phrases I use all the time:
1. I love you more the most, more than toast
2. JAXON WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
3. Oh no Jaxon!!!
4. Will you two stop fighting?
5. Jaxon get down from there.
6. Can you please put your shoes away?
7. Jaxon how did you get that?
8. What is that on the carpet?

Eight things I want to do before I die.
1. See every moment of my children's lives (well, almost every one. Im sure there are a few I will prefer to skip)
2. Lots and lots of traveling
3. Get my degree
4. Have a 6 pack
5. Get both babies to nap at the same time
6. Be a missionary mommy
7. Be great at something- anything :)
8. Do a half ironman triathlon

Eight things I currently want or need:
1. To get the hardwood sample from the floor guy so I can make my final decision
2. More time in the day
3. To eat something
4. Our remodel project to be done (and we aren't even started yet)
5. Warm weather year round
6. My back to heal up
7. A good run
8. Alone time

Eight places I want to visit:
1. Cancun (again)
2. Japan (again)
3. Europe
4. Hawaii
5. Puerto Vallarta
6. New York
7. The Bahamas
8. Any place warm and with a beach

Eight favorite restaurants:
1. Tucanos
2.Taco Johns :)
3. Outback
4. Wendy's
5. Johnny Carinos
6. Jaliscos
7. Garcias
8.Wasabi

8 TV shows I watch:
1. 24
2. The Office
3. CSI
4. Wife Swap
5. The Unit
6. Supernanny
7. The Mentalist
8. Criminal Minds

Eight People I tag:
1. Alida
2. Tiffany M.
3. Mason
4. Savannah
5. Tiffini
6. Sally
7. Brittany B.
8. Loots

Mason funny

Jaxon is standing there, diaperless, playing with himself. He thinks it's fun to flick it with his hand and watch it bob up and down :)

Me: "Nice. Is that a fun toy?"
Mason: "We should get you another one of those Jaxon!"

Halloween, Halloween, Trick-Or- Treat

We had a great Halloween- amazing weather, which is rare here. We usually trudge through snow, sleet, ice and hail on Halloween ;) Thought I'd throw up some pics.


My wonderful neighborhood did a fun thing. We had a dinner party at Betsy's house at 4:30, and then loaded the kids on a hay-filled trailer. We took them up our road (about 30-40-kids were on it) and stopped at each house. They would come out to the trailer and give each child their candy. The kids didn't have to get off. The neighbors only had to answer the door once. And everyone could go visit grandma, or family, later in the evening. It was so much fun.



Did I mention that I looked hot? Check us all out. Try not to drool too much ;)

Here I am with my blue eye shadow, my dark blush, my side pony tail, huge, belted shirt over leggings, layered sock and high tops, as well as radical earrings :)




Baby Jayden in his Kangaroo costume.
Savannah was a kitty. And yes, this is the same costume I wore to Hidee's party. Except I didnt wear her leotard or leggings :)


Jaxon was a lion. The hood stayed on just long enough for me to snap this. You can see his hands are already on it, and off it came about 1/3 second later.




Mason was a skeleton. He's trying to hold Jayden but pooe Jayden wasn't loving it.




Here is a pic of all the neighborhood kids on the hayride, going from house to house. Why didnt our parents think of this all those years ago? What an efficient way to get some snackage!

Jaxon got tired and was dragging around his blankey, sucking on the fringe, as he does when he is tired. So cute.

Jaxon's Distaster of the Week

When you have a child like Jaxon, you have 2 choices:


#1 Become frustrated and bitter about the fact that nothing in your house will last longer than a week or so, everything will be drawn on, broken into pieces, and thrown at someone's head, and someone will likely be hospitalized on a regular basis as a result of his antics

or

#2 See that Jaxon has just given you a perfect weekly column for your blog :)

I choose #2.

So, you will now get a weekly installment of "Jaxon's disaster of the week".

When I tell people about things he does, they say, "Oh Im sorry he was so bad today. I'm sorry you had a rough day." I want to say, "No, you dont understand, today was just another day. This was nothing out of the ordinary." So I thought it would be fun, as the week goes on and I clean up mess after mess, as I throw away another box full of cereal that was dumped all over 3 rooms, as I soak up 10 gallons of water that made it onto the carpet, etc...to pick which one of his little tricks was the best.


Well, the week isn't over yet, but Im gonna post the one that takes the cake *pun* here and if he tops it again this week, you might get an extra installment.


Okay, actually the cake wasn't the best one, but here is a picture of Mason's birthday cake- Jaxon style-, just for kicks,

But that was nothing, I assure you. I didnt even flinch at that one.

So far this week, here is the best one, which you wont get until I tell the story.

What is this, you might ask? Well, with Jax, we know that everything must be locked, or things will be either dangerous or expensive. So I put a lock on the oven. Jaxon was opening the oven and using the racks to climb up on the cupboards. I was terrified that he would do that when it was on and burn himself badly. So we locked the oven.

Yesterday morning, I was bathing Jayden when I smelled smoke coming from the kitchen. I went in to find that Jaxon had pulled the bottom of the plastic lock off of the front of the oven door, opened the door, and placed it inside the oven. Then he climbed up onto the stove and turned the oven on. As the oven heated up, the plastic lock melted onto the inside of the oven and eventually started dripping onto the inside of the oven door and smoking up my entire house.

I have no idea how to get this melted plastic off the inside of the oven and cannot use my oven at all until I do :)

In keeping with my resolve to put a positive spin on these things (I should so be a politician), I will kindly thank Jaxon for making it so I dont have to cook for a while.

See you next week with our next installment. Please pray for me that it won't be too expensive.

is it ME?

The past week, I've been spending my life on the phone, trying to get other people's stupid mistakes figured out. It must be me because I swear, it's not normal for this many things to be "processed incorrectly".

Last week, I got a statement from my insurance saying that Jaxon's hospitalization was denied because he was not eligible for benefits at the time of service. So I called them to find out what was up. You would think that if you pay $500 a month for insurance that you rarely use anyway, they would be willing to pay when it is actually needed. They said it was their error and they would indeed pay all the claims that they denied (which was the hospital, the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the radiologist etc...).

Then, I got a statement in the mail saying our house payment was late. So I called because we recently refinanced and our old mortgage was supposed to be paid off weeks ago. When I called, I was told they couldn't access that information since they were undergoing system maintenance. I would have to call back another time to find out whether it had indeed been paid off. Here it is the end of the month and Im panicking because if for any reason, they haven't received the funds, they could report it to the credit bureau. I tried to access it online as well but had no luck their either.

Then today I took Mason's lunch money up to the school. I took it straight to the lunch room and paid cash. A couple hours later, he called me to say they wouldn't let him eat lunch because he didnt have lunch money. Apparently they didnt get it put into the computer or something....

After that, I ran to Target to get some birthday stuff for Mason. I wrote a check. He told me my check was not approved. I was confused since I have never had a returned check. I asked for a number to call to find out why it was not approved. He didnt have one, but called the front desk, who didn't know either, and gave me their guest relations number. So I called and explained, and was told, "We're sorry. Our system is having issues and we cannot accept any checks right now. It has nothing to do with your account, we are just asking all guests to pay with another tender until we get it fixed." Would have been nice if the store had known that so I hadn't felt like an idiot when they told me they wouldn't take my check!

Then I got the mail, and sure enough, there is a bill from the hospital saying the insurance has failed to pay and I now have to pay thousands of dollars right away. So I get to call the insurance back, and I get to call the hospital, to see if I can get that resolved before we have anything showing as delinquent.

I also had a battery for my camera go bad. So several weeks ago I called and since it is warranteed, they said they would be sending me a new one and it would be here in 2-3 buisness days. That was 3 weeks ago, and it has not arrived. So I get to call them as well to find out where it is.

Is this normal? I give my money to all of these people and you'd think that would make things go smoothly, but no, apparently it's very common for people to not realize that you are or have given them money. I would have lots more free time if I didnt have to spend so much of it on the phone taking care of these issues. Seems like I need to keep my schedule completely free so that I can spend the day doing nothing except straightening out whatever messes have been made with my accounts :)

Phew...there is my rant for the day!

And of cooooouuuurrrse

Mason found out that Savannah had a blog, so he had to have one too!

His is

http://www.theworldofmason.blogspot.com/

Savannah Says so

My mini me has decided she needs a blog. So of course, it's pretty much what Savannah wants, Savannah gets, so I made her a blog. Not much on it yet, but we'll get there!

http://savannahsaysso.blogspot.com/