Ashton has been begging for a Mario hat for weeks.  This past Sunday his Gammy struck a deal with him, that if he did something to earn it, she would order it for him.  He swept leaves for her and she held up her end of the deal and told him it would be here Wednesday…  When I picked him up today, he had his stuff together, backpack on and immediately said… “can we hurry up and get home and check the mail mom?” He is one happy Mario fan.

Posted via Anastasia the Android.  

Celebrating Pop Pop’s 66th Birthday

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Thursday night I had probably the worst day at my job that I have had in almost 8 years.  It was emotionally draining and I was behind closed doors with my boss from 4:15pm until 8pm hashing some stuff out.  I was so caught up in our meeting that I completely forgot to text or call Todd and the kids and let them know I was going to be late.  They called my parents looking for me, then police stations asking if there were accidents anywhere, then hospitals.  Todd finally packed the kids up and came to my work.  It was a mess.  My boss and I finished around 8 and left it with us both needing to think about some things.  I went home and proceeded to not sleep one second that night.  Friday morning, at 6am I finally got into the shower and started getting ready to get the kids to school and head into work for probably more discussion with my boss.  Apparently after I turned the water off and was done showering, I blacked out and fell.  I hit my right shoulder on the lip of the tub, followed by my cheek underneath my right eye.

All of a sudden I was sitting on the floor of the bathtub, wondering why in the hell I was down there and noticing that I had something protruding from my cheek that was completely blocking my vision from my right eye.  I got up, dried off, looked in the mirror and saw the enormous goose egg on my cheek.  I did not remember hitting the side of the tub at all.  I am guessing I was SO stressed from the night before and from lack of sleep that my body just shut down for a second.  I started crying when I saw how huge my cheek was and that is when Todd came running upstairs from making coffee.  At this point, he had had just about enough of worrying about me between thinking I was dead and now this!

The goose egg swelling went down relatively fast, like within two hours… but then the black eye started setting in.  It is looking absolutely fabulous!  Todd is NOT liking being in public with me while I have it, he is sure that everyone thinks that he has hit me - “fell in the bathtub, huh?  Sure!”  It probably does not help when I try to joke around while we are stoplights in the car and look out the window at the car next to us and mouth the words “HELP ME!”  He does not find that funny at ALL.

It is starting to turn yellow now and look all gross.  I am eagerly awaiting the disappearance of it entirely!

Today, I fear, is the day I have been dreading.  The day that I have to tell Kaiden she has to pick whether she wants to pursue soccer or dance.  We received an email this morning from one of her dance teachers that she has been moved up another level in dance.  This move adds another hour per week of dancing and another day, bringing the total now to 4.5 hours of dance per week, over 3 days.  One of those days is Saturday.  With the move in dance, she will now have to attend and hour and a half of Jazz on Saturday mornings.  Saturday mornings are when all of her soccer games are.  There is no possible way that we can continue to try and do both.  She will either miss too much dance, or too much soccer, which is not fair to her soccer coach OR her dance instructor.

She has been taking dance since she was 2 years old… but she loves playing soccer.  Honestly, I will probably stress over this more than anyone else… and honestly I feel so heavy inside over it, that I have felt nauseous all day long.  I want what is best for her and I want her to be able to make this decision, but at the same time, I want all the factors weighed and I want us to make the RIGHT decision.  I am dreading this conversation with her.  DREADING.

01/19/20 UPDATE:
We had a long discussion and we talked about the pros and cons of each.  When it was all said and done, her heart is in soccer.  I am not going to lie, I cried a little bit.  Kaiden cried too.  But this is her decision and she wants to pursue soccer over dance.  I have given our notice to the dance studio and Kaiden has been signed up for several clinics and academies to now fill in the time that is free with dance gone.  So, we will now put full effort into soccer for her.  Starting next week we have a 5 week Grassroots Academy (Wednesday nights) for technique and we also have a 5 week Indoor Futsal Academy (Monday nights) starting up.  We will continue playing in the winter Advanced Indoor League (Thursdays/Saturdays) until her official outdoor season starts up in the spring.

Had an orientation, electives tour and then registered for her electives for next year. I cannot believe she is heading to Middle School next year.

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For Christmas, my sister had a ton of Blue-Ray movies on her Wish List.  She also had a Blue Ray player on her list.  She got a bunch of Blue-Ray movies… but no Blue-Ray Player, which was freaking HYSTERICAL!!!  Her Christmas Movies = USELESS!!!  She did end up getting the Blue-Ray player for her birthday, which was on January 6th, but until that day came, she just thought she was screwed (again… that kind of shit is hysterical to my family).  So, she was bringing the movies over to my house and we were having movie night after movie night, with lights out, surround sound on and all of us snuggled under blankets. 

The last movie she brought over was Pan’s Labyrinth, which she had hyped Kaiden and I up about, describing it as a fantasy movie… “you know like Narnia or Labyrinth.”  So we all got ready to watch it and found out quickly that the film was completely in Spanish with subtitles.  Kelly thought she not only got screwed out of the Blue-Ray player, but also was bought the Spanish version of a movie.  After some quick googling, we found out that it is only available in Spanish and made the group decision to watch it anyways.  Very quickly into the movie we pretty much figured out that this WAS NOT A KIDS FANTASY MOVIE… like after this scene:

Kaiden very quickly covered her eyes and Todd and Kelly shot each other looks and we continued watching.  It was not until after this next scene that I finally shot Kelly a look and said “Okay Kaiden I am going upstairs to watch TV in my room, do you want to come?”  She did not skip a beat and immediately said yes and followed me up.  Todd and Kelly continued with the movie making the evening a “date night” for them.

Not until AFTER the movie did we check the rating and read some reviews clearly stating that this was in NO WAY a film suitable for children.  Not that ratings or reviews have ever made a decision for me on what I will and will not let my kids watch… because they do not, BUT this one was a little rough.

So what did we all choose to watch the next night together???

Paranormal Activity.  Who picked this one?  Kaiden.  What was Todd and I’s response to her wanting to see that movie?  “Screw it… if she wants to watch a scary movie and thinks she is all big and bad… let her watch it!”  But not only watch it, watch it in the dark, with the surround sound turned up LOUD!  We were ready for her to be done with it 30 minutes in, but damn if she did not sit through the whole thing!  Damn her!!!  She even went right to bed that night with no problems.  Double Damn her!!!

I really hate when I want my kids to fail and they show me up. 

2011 was a good year for us… a really good year.  We are happy, healthy and surviving life’s ups and downs and hope that everyone else is doing the same.  We are looking forward to 2012 and all that it brings for us!  Happy New Year to everyone!