Busy Busy....

So I just wanted to post really quick, since I haven't in forever... but since I really don't have time to catch everyone up with everything that's going on, I did this:

You can do it to... Here are the directions:

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.
The Questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?

8. Favorite dessert?

9. What you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One Word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name.

Pretty good weekend...

Church on Thursday night was fun. We talked to the kids about Creation, and how God made the earth and everything in it. We (the teachers) made a huge batch of playdough before hand, and gave the kids each a piece to color. So it wasn't nearly as messy as last week.

Friday was fun. We took R to gymnastics class, then sent her off to stay the night at my Grandparents ranch. I went and got my hair done, and then ran some errands. I met up with Denise and Andrea, went to a little pub close to our house and mingled (no worries... no alcoholic drinks for me!). I saw one of my best guy friends who I hadn't seen or talked to in like 6 years! It was so nice to catch up with him again. We were talking about how 7 years ago we made a promise that if neither of us were married by the time I turned 25, that we would get married. Just such a coincidence that we see each other again the week of my 25th birthday. He acted dissapointed that I was already married, but I know neither of us really meant it 7 years ago. We're great friends, but there's just no attraction there.

Saturday I hung out by Andrea's pool and got a little tan (ok more of a burn). It was nice to just relax kid-free. I can't wait until we get a pool someday. I know I could lay out on my patio, but it's just not the same. Saturday night I had some family drive down to my grandparents ranch to spend Father's Day with my grandpa. So I went out, visited with them, and then brought R home. Sunday R & I made S breakfast in bed (homemade belgian waffles & fresh fruit). Then we went to church & S went to work after.

Yesterday I started feeling kind of achy, but got a lot done at work. I felt like poop by the time I got home, and I feel even worse today. My glands in my neck are swollen, my sinuses hurt, my eyes burn, and I am running a pretty decent fever. Not to mention my period (finally!) started, so I'm super crampy. The only good thing about that is that we will be getting new dates by te end of the week! I go for more blood work tomorrow morning, and stay on the lupron (joy) until told otherwise. I truly feel like this is the cycle for us. It's going to work this time, no doubt about it :) So I'm thinking it'll be late July sometime... which means I'd be due in mid April if it's a singleton, a little before that if it's twins. That would be nice because the weather is wonderful here in April, so I wouldn't have to be pregnant during the summer! Anyways, I'm done rambling. I'll post some photos of the baby stuff I've been making for my friends shower later tonight if I'm feeling up to it :)

Uneventful few days...

but it's been nice! We had a wonderful dinner with our neighbors on Tuesday night. They have a little girl R's age, and they get along wonderfully (well as wonderful as two 3 yr olds can). Sharing becomes an issue at times, but both girls are very bright kids, and extremely good with words, so they tend to explain exactly what the other girl is doing to upset them. It's so cute to watch them play. We had an exceptional dinner as always with them. They're amazing cooks, and their veggie garden provided all the makings for a wonderful salad.

Last night was somewhat relaxing... R & I walked to my moms house around the corner and visited with her for a bit, and then I came home and worked on some baby shoes & a bib that I'm making for a friends baby shower. They turned out pretty good for my first ones! Tonight I'm helping at church again with the pre-schoolers. I'm looking forward to a few good laughs, and perhaps another lesson or two! Today is my last day at work for the week, so I'm getting antsy for these last few hours to pass. I'm looking forward to spending the morning relaxing, getting my hair cut, and then I'm hosting a BabyCrazy party in the evening... then maybe meet up with some friends for dinner & drinks (non-alcoholic ones for me of course). I still need to figure out what to get S for Father's day. I always have the kids make something, but I'd like to get him something special for himself that he normally wouldn't treat himself to. Off to wrap some things up around here before heading home...

Fertile Myrtle?!

Well the transfer has been postponed for now... SOMEHOW my body managed to ovulate despite being on birth control pills, Lupron injections, and only having one functioning ovary due to the cyst. The nurse who broke the bad news to me over the phone called it "Miraculous", uh ok, like that makes me feel any better? I don't want to be miraculous... I just wanted to have a normal, uneventful cycle. I'm sure God has a plan for me, and a reason behind this set-back, so I'm really not upset... just feeling pretty blah today. Tony better not start in with a nose hair-trimmer or something... I'm likely to snap. I can blame it on my wacky, unsupressed hormones right?!

Hormones?

Ok, so maybe this is the just the hormones talking, but I'm so disgusted with people today. I work in a large office, but we (there's 5 of us "mappers") are stuck back in a small room that's divided up into cubicles. The guy that sits in the cubicle behind me, we'll call him Tony (and I won't tell you if it's his real name or not), is a disgusting pig! No I'm not exaggerating! Case in point: I just heard him clipping his toenails!! UGH! Excuse me while I vomit in my trash can.......... ok, I'm back... Who in their right mind does that though? I don't even do that in front of my husband! I would never EVER even contemplate bringing toe-nail clippers to work, let alone whipping them out, taking off my shoes, and proceeding to chop the dang things! On top of hearing him administer nose-spray, and blowing his nose 1 million and 4 times a day, I just about lost it when I heard the clipping noises.

My prayer for the day: Thank you Lord for letting me sit in this cubicle where I cannot actually see him doing this. Please give me the strength to keep my mouth closed so I don't tell him how rude and disgusting he truly is... better yet... could you make me deaf for the rest of the day? I really wouldn't mind...

LONG weekend...

Not going to go into much detail, but things came to a head Friday evening with Nephew. I kicked him out, and had to call the cops to get him and one of his friends to get off our property. Very scary for a little while, but I guess things are ok now. I can't help but feeling like he's going to come back and do something stupid like vandalize my car or something. Anyways... on to better things....
We had 2 birthday parties to go to on Saturday, so R had no nap, but she actually behaved really well! I was surprised. Afterwards she stayed the night at my mom's house since I had to leave for Westlake Village at 5:45 in the morning for my baseline appointment. The drive there and back was nice and easy. No real traffic to speak of, which is rare when speaking of the 405/101 interchange!! Dr. F found a small cyst on my left ovary, which shouldn't pose a problem as long as it's not affecting my hormone levels. I should have the results from that sometime this afternoon. Hopefully every thing's fine. So far this journey as been so smooth and easy, I'd hate for something to go wrong now. M&D have arranged for a chauffeured car to pick me up on the 27th and drive me down to the hotel I will be staying at for the transfer! I'm so spoiled!! I get a driver, on top of a relaxing few days in a nice hotel with no kids!! I'm not going to want to come home! Nah... I'm sure I'll miss them terribly after a day or two, but it will be a nice break. I need to stock up on some more books! I've already started reading the ones I bought (oops!) I just finished the whole Cross series my James Patterson. I finished Double Cross last night. I haven't liked the last few stories as much as the first couple, but his writing style is just so easy to read, and there are never any boring chapters, which can make it unbelievable, but engrossing all at the same time. Anyways, I'm trying to force myself to not start reading Women's Murder club series until I'm at the hotel. It's hard though!! Anyways, I better get some work done around here... Off to do some mapping!

Lessons learned in less than 24 hours...

Well helping with the church pre-school last night was filled with fun, and a few lessons. We talked about the story of Noah, the ark, the animals, rain, flood, and how a rainbow is God's way of reminding us of his promise to never flood the earth like that again. So that lead directly into our art project of the night... rainbows! We had photocopied a bunch of black-line rainbows onto construction paper, and gave the kids (16 of them, ages 3 to 6, and did I mention there were only 2 teachers?) colorful tissue paper squares, and glue sticks. The idea was that they could "color" their rainbow by coating it with the glue stick then covering it with the little color squares... that part went ok once we explained it was much easier to apply the glue to the rainbow instead of applying the glue to the tissue. Then came the fun part... cotton ball clouds! I won't go into much detail, but this was my 1st lesson:

#1 chubby kids fingers + glue-stick + cotton balls = a line at the sink 16 kids long, and little tufts of cotton everywhere. I even found some on my pants at home 2 hours later.

The kids were an absolute blast though. I love the years between 3 & 6. They're still so eager to please you and be a "big-helper". I wish that feeling never ended... as in the case of my 18 yr. old nephew... long story short he dropped out of high-school, got kicked out of his parents house, has horrible friends, can't get a driver's license (medical reason), and can't hold a job... so my husband and I made the decision about 1 yr. ago to let him stay with us and we'd help him get back on his feet. He took major advantage of us, lied, let his friends steal, etc etc. We kicked him out about 6 months ago. Now he came back 4 days ago begging and pleading for us to take him back. We talked about it for a long time. S & I prayed about it, had lengthy discussions about forgiveness, then we talked to Nephew & set ground rules (NO friends over unless S or myself is there, curfew, etc). Well he did great for 3 days. We had plans to go add a cell phone to our plan for him, and take him down to dmv to get an ID card so he could at least apply for jobs. Yesterday as I was leaving for church I could tell something was up... but I didn't say anything. Sure enough, I come home, he is gone, there is a beer bottle cap on my counter, and a can of budlight in my freezer (why?). All 4 Wii remotes are out on the floor, the tv is on, and the front door is unlocked. UGH!! I'm pissed, and just waiting for him to come back... instead he calls around 9. Says he's at his Dad's (sure I believe THAT!) and he'd be back in the morning. It's almost 11am now and after talking to S, Nephew still hasn't shown up. I didn't act pissed on the phone last night, because I thought if I did he wouldn't ever come back. Well now I'm wishing I would have taken the chance to yell at him since he didn't come back anyways. Another lesson learned!

#2: Forgiving repeat offenders should be left up to God... apparently I am not a good judge.

#2.5: Never hold back in hopes of confronting someone face-to-face. If you have them on the phone Now is as good a time as any.

1st entry...

Look up "Mom" in the dictionary... what do you see?

mom - noun. informal. (see "mother")

hmm... well that doesn't help much, does it? What is a "mom"? It's certainly more than just having a kid or two (or 3 or 4). I'd even say that a woman who gives her child up for adoption is still a "mother", but not a "mom". This is just my opinion on the matter, of course, but to me there is a huge difference... I am not just a mother... I am a wife, a cadastral mapping tech (don't ask more on that later), a chauffeur, a cook, a maid, a nurse, a story-teller, an artist, a crafter, a dancer, an acrobat, a clumsy clown, a gardener, a christian, a sinner, a lover, a self-conscious 24 (soon to be 25) year old that feels like being a "mom" is the best thing in the universe. I wouldn't trade it for anything. This is my blog about anything, and everything, and ultimately what my definition of "mom" is... feel free to disagree, after all, not even the dictionary has a definition for the word.

A little about me: I'm 24, I have a wonderful husband "S" to whom I have been married to for almost 2 yrs, I am the step-mom to a wonderful 8 yr. old boy, "P" and mom to a red-headed, 3 yr. old daughter "R". I am also in the middle of an IVF cycle to become a Surrogate Mother for a wonderful couple "M & D" . Hopefully I'll be pregnant by this time next moth :) I work full time for the local county offices. I'm a cadastral mapping technician, which basically means I draw property maps for tax assessment purposes. Before you flame me, I DO NOT calculate your taxes... I just keep track of the actual property maps... like if a farmer sells off his 20 acres and it gets developed into tiny subdivision lots and streets. Over the last few months my family has started going back to church, and we are loving every minute. I had truly thought my life was great before, but it is just so much more fulfilling now. As far as hobbies go, I enjoy working on our yard, crafting just about anything, sewing, reading (love james patterson), playing with our animals: 1 cat, 1 dog, 1 horse, I've started experimenting with cooking lately, and of course I love anything and everything to do with babies & kids. I even sell BabyCrazy products (www.iambabycrazy.com/335) In fact I almost forgot!! I'm supposed to help with the church daycare tonight... those kids are always entertaining, so I'm sure I'll have a story to tell tomorrow....