BUSY bizzzzzy BEE! That's ME!

I haven't had much time to blog. Trying to catch up!! =o)

Today started the 2nd week of school! So far SO GOOD! Last week Abigail walked Aaliyah to her class every morning. She said Aaliyah started to cry just a little bit when she left :(. But this week she is all on her own getting to her class every morning! While I know she is fine. There is a part of me that is worried she never made it to her class and is sitting in the bathroom crying! But I am not going to think about that!!

We had a little mishap the first day of school. Aaliyah came home with her name written across the front of her book bag! When I asked who did it, she said her teacher did! Yeah, I was a very aggravated mom that day! I called the school, the teacher, and wrote a very "nice" letter to the teacher and

school. I couldn't believe that her TEACHER would have done something so inconsiderate, and dangerous! Needless to say they sent me home a $20 check to replace her book bag! Thank God! I was going to be up at the school if someone didn't do something. I mean it is 2010. There is crazy people everywhere, I did not need my child walking around everyday with her whole name in plain view for anyone to see! I am so glad I didn't have to go in angry mom mode, and they dealt with it exactly how I wanted them too!!

Abigail LOVES 2nd grade, and luckily has a friend from the neighborhood in her class!

But having the kids in school has been a nice break during the day. Except it means waking up again at 6:30am! I have never been a morning person, but I have to admit I am getting better at it!

The first day of school, was also my first day of work! Not actual work yet, BUT training for the real deal! I got hired over the summer at Gary's Bistro. Which is an amazing new spot in the Avenue off of Scenic Hwy. It opens September 3rd, and I strongly recommend everyone come check it out! I have been training 3 days a week, 10amish to about 2pm. Once it opens I will be daytime bartender M-Th (I hope!) 10am-4pm! Which will be great b/c I will have my afternoons at home with the kids, and weekends at home with the family! Michael works nights, so he will have babies, no daycare!!! Only downfall is I won't ever see my darling until the weekends. When I get off of work, he will be getting ready to leave for work :( But we will have Fri and Sat together! And it it worth it for us to be able to start saving money! We have a To Do List of thing we hope to accomplish in the next couple years! We have to start moving towards that direction!

BUT Anyway (sorry got off subject!) Gary's Bistro. Amazing menu! It's definitely been a challenge for me. I am having to learn to pronounce names of things I have never even heard of before! But after several taste tests, I guarantee you, if you come visit once, YOU WILL BE BACK! And if you like Calamari, you MUST come. I love it, and this is by far the best I have ever tasted! OK- Now that I am done advertising.. lol.. back to family!

Abigail has been cheering for the last few weeks! She loves it and is doing SO good! She even won the spirit stick on the 2nd week! As expensive as it was ($400!!!) I am starting to believe it was worth every penny! I would be lying if I said it wasn't a challenge for mom though! 3 days a week she has practice 6:30-8, and every Saturday a game at 10am! Between school, work, babies, laundry, cooking, babies, feeding, organizing, babies, cleaning, laundry, cheer leading, babies, laundry, laundry and more laundry. Some days I feel like I have disappeared out of my body! It becomes a challenge to get myself showered and dressed! But honestly it hasn't been THAT bad. Just will take me a little while to get used to this new schedule! Over the summer we were pretty relaxed, and I had all the time in the world, now not so much! lol. But I wouldn't change it for the world! Kids are happy, Mommy and Daddy are happy! That is all that matters, right?

This past weekend was really nice! Friday we went to visit a good friend of mine who just recently had her baby girl, Addison, 9 weeks early! She developed preclampsia and had some issues with blood clots. They admitted her in the hospital last Monday and delivered baby on Tuesday! She was 2lb 7oz! But is so precious! And is a fighter! She will remain in the NICU for the next couple months, but I believe she will be just fine! Jessica is a first time mom, so anyone who believes in the power of prayer, please keep her in mind!

Saturday we took the girls to the mall! They love it! We bought Aaliyah a new book bag, and a few other things we went for. While there Bass Pro Shop was having a reptile show. We got to see and touch (which I was a little iffy about) an anaconda! The girls were thrilled! They love snakes. That they most definitely did not get from me! lol

THEN Saturday afternoon while the kids were outside playing, Aaliyah starts screaming and crying. As any mother who can tell the difference between cries, I knew she had to be hurt.

The little boy she was playing with was picking up the skate board at the same time Aaliyah was bending over to get it. He popped it up with his foot and BAM it hit her right in the cheek :( Poor baby. She has a puffed up cheek, scratch down in, and a big black bruise :( Picture day is Friday, needless to say we will be doing re-takes in a few weeks!!

Babies are now completely MOBILE! In to everything and all over the place! They are teething and have completely changed their schedules too! We are now on one nap a day. Not sure how I feel about that yet. I kind of likes their old schedule better! lol. Due to the teething they are getting harder to put to bed at night. Here lately haven't been falling asleep until almost 11pm! (usually would be asleep by 8:30) and they sleep 12-13 hours each night. SO only plus side to that is, they sleep until 10:30-11:30 in the morning!! Mommy does like that part! But once I start working a 'normal' schedule I will get them back on a more decent one too!

No more teeth YET but Madison's are right there ready to pop!

Maggie learned the word No, except in her vocab it is pronounced "DOE" lol. AND she is clapping her hands and says "Uh OH"! Madison is army crawling ALL over the place but can't quite get those knees up! They both are growing at rapid speed! I wish I knew how to stop them!!!

Until next time....

Shopping with 3 different opinions

After this past week, I realize how awful of a child I probably was, and am very sympathetic to my mother for putting up with me. I realize this because my children are JUST like me.
In the last week we have spent countless hours shopping. Everything I liked, they didn't. Everything they wanted was too short, too tight fitting, too teenage looking, and too PINK!
It took me back to the days when I begged my mom for daisy dukes, thongs, and halter tops!

We started our shopping trip Saturday up at the North GA Premium Outlets. This was personally my first time at these outlets. I was quite impressed! We hit some great sales, and enjoyed browsing! Best sale of all was Carter's and OshGosh. While I love their sales in my stores, up there was just as good, but better!! We hit some sale racks where everything was $1.99, $5.99 and under.. then you got 20% off of EVERYTHING, including sale prices! Luckily Aaliyah is only a size 6, so I can still shop there for her! She racked up and got some super cute clothing. Of course even though we were shopping for big girls, I had to snatch up some great deals for the babies too! They came out with a few onesies a piece, and new pj's!

Abigail is by far the most difficult to shop for. She is very thick. Her height/weight has not equaled out yet. So she has to try on everything. The entire shopping trip she was not worried about buying any clothes. All she wanted to buy was, bras. OMG. Talk about driving me crazy! She is only 7, but she does have a little "sumthin sumthin"sticking out, if you know what I mean! She has some of the halter/sports bras, but she was convinced she was buying the real deal. Well she got a rude awakening when I said no to triangle bras. She found some cute ones at Justice, but they were $15.90 for 2! After I explained that she was 7 years old and did not those, I convinced her to wait and get them from Walmart. That seemed to calm the water, a little. The other issue with Abigail is so far she had 4 PINK tops. I told her NO more pink! She had to find some different colors. That part was not so easy. Everything cute, was pink. But I refuse to have my child wearing pink EVERY day! She wanted the plaid skirts, lace tops, red and black checkered pants. The whole time I am thinking, when did my child turn emo?? Am I raising a punk rocker? That was until I took her to stores with the Apple bottom jeans, Enyce, Mecca, and other "hip hop" styles, as Abigail would call them. Then she was right at home, and Mama was a little bit more at ease with her style choices!

SHOES were not so much fun. Both the girls had 2 pair of sketchers last year, so I said NO to sketchers. I wanted them to have a nice pair of Nike tennis shoes. Well that got the storm going again. Trying to explain that to a 7 yr old and a 5 yr old was very interesting. While I thought it would have been easier just to give in and let them get sketchers (after all they are cheaper!) I knew I had to stick to my word, to prove my point. (I sometimes fall short of always sticking to my word when it comes to NO's)
So we went to Nike, Adidas, and Puma.. everything I liked for them, and they agreed to, didn't have their sizes. So frustrating!! After an endless search, we decided to head back to our side of town and hit up Discover Mills. (Abby's favorite mall) But not before of course, it started pouring rain!

Discover Mills wasn't much help either. After going through EVERY shoe store in there, still left empty handed. (besides the couple outfits we got Abby). Still no shoes.

Sunday I was too exhausted to try and go shopping, AGAIN. But I did hit up Walmart, ALONE. For the basic essentials. Socks, panties, BRAS, and hair stuff. It is so much easier shopping ALONE. Abby was very happy with her 'bras'. Thank God.

Today I got everyone ready to head out shopping, AGAIN. I was expecting to be gone the whole day, and took two Advil in advance. I was prepared for "NO mom I don't like those, I hate that, that's ugly, Ewww... OMG Mom". Well much to my surprise. It wasn't bad at all. They were actually somewhat cooperative and didn't complain much about Mommy's style choices!
I got a coupon from the Sunday paper for Shoe Carnival. Plus they were having a BOGO sale! Abigail ended up getting the Nike's she originally wanted, (whew!) And I talked Aaliyah into getting a super cute pair of Puma's! Even though they were BOGO and I had a coupon, they ended up still being a little more expensive than I had wanted them to be, but I was relieved to have finally found shoes I didn't care how much they were!!

We were in the shopping center off 124, with Target, Marshall's and TJMaxx. So while I had the babies already in stroller, we decided to browse around! Thank goodness we did! We ended up finding Abigail 4 more tops and another pair of shorts! I then declared we were FINISHED shopping.

After we got home, I put together all their outfits and shoes from recent shopping trips and things we had picked up in the last few months. Both girls ended up with 9 outfits a piece, and 5 extra misc. shirts a piece, 2 dresses tennis shoes, high top sneakers, two pair of sandals each, a pack a socks each, new panties, Abby's bras, new hair bows, new combs, new book bags each, and a million different school supplies! All in all, I think they did pretty dang good!! And didn't quite break Mom and Dad's wallets! Close to it though.

Now the biggest issue is, where am I going to put all this new stuff?? I just made room and got the old stuff organized. My girls need an extra room just for clothes and shoes!!
But I know I sure am glad I am done shopping! At least for a few months, once the weather cools down, I will be at it again =o)

I can't believe in 7 days my babies will both be in school, and I will be working again =o(
Where did the summer go??