Momentary panic

Kaylin's school just called me, checking on her whereabouts. Her whereabouts should have been at school, so I called Bobby. He saw her whereabouts get on the school bus, so I called back to school. They put me on hold for what seemed like forever, then returned with "she was marked absent on accident. She's in class!"

Whew. Heart can start beating again. My imagination had ran wild as to what had happened to her!

My day

Here's my day, in a nutshell.

Work all day--have a student teacher, but she's not teaching yet. I taught all day, and explained every little thing to her in downtime. Felt like I talked All.Day.Long.

4:00--Get girls off bus. Kaylin crying about her ear (like she does every day)
4:15--Fix dinner for Macy and me; Kaylin won't eat and Bobby is sick
4:30--Make Kaylin doctor's appt.
5:00--Drop Macy off at friends house to play
5:15--Take Kaylin to doctor--bad, bad case of swimmer's ear. Antibiotic ear drops prescribed.
6:00--Drop off Kaylin at cheerleading
6:15--Pick up Macy from friends house
6:25--Drop off Kaylin's prescription
6:30--Go to last 30 minutes of Kaylin's cheerleading practice (I'm assistant coach)
7:00--Drop off Macy at basketball
7:05--Get car stuck in snow and other basketball coach has to push car out
7:10--Get gas
7:15--Pick up Kaylin's prescription
7:30--Pick up McDonalds for Bobby
7:35--Fix Kaylin dinner
7:40--Fight with Garage door; garage door wins
8:00-Pick Up Macy from basketball
8:30--prayers, books read, backpacks ready for tomorrow, clothes picked out
9:00--start working on test/study guide for class tomorrow
11:00--realize I left something at school and can't finish test
11:30--finish what I can; have to get up early to finish at school
11:45--finish this blog post and go to bed

I cannot wait until my husband feels better and life can return to normal. Who am I kidding? Life is never normal.

Insert short joke here

On Sunday, we babysat a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. I had totally forgotten what it was like to have a baby in the house, and I was exhausted by Sunday night. The two girls were perfect angels, but it was exhausting watching a baby atalltimes in our un-babyproofed house.  Those parents with 4 or 5 kids? No idea how they do it. Coats on, buckle in the car seat, drive, unbuckle, get out of the car, hold hand in parking lot, take coats off, repeat, repeat, repeat.

At one point, Macy was standing next to me. In case you haven't seen us stand next to each other for a while, she's right about my jawline or checkbones. The little 3-year-old Kali looked up at us and said, "You guys are the same age!"

Uh, not exactly.

I may be terrible, but I'm okay with that

We are not a healthy-food family. I know, I know, we should be, but we aren't. But you know--our kids are healthy, happy, well-adjusted. They are obviously growing well despite the lack of healthy food. As the kids have gotten older, I don't fuss about certain foods, and just let my kids live.

Bobby told me to give Macy a Mountain Dew about a 1/2 hour or hour before her basketball game, time enough for that caffeine to kick into her system and make her hyper. She's rarely hyper on the basketball court, and he wanted her to be more aggressive. Sugar and caffeine will do that for you.

So we were at Kaylin's game, at the concession stand, and I was commenting to another mom that I needed to buy Macy's Mountain Dew. Another mom I don't know overhead, and let me tell you, you would have thought I was going to buy crack for my kid.

"You are buying what?" She said, eyes as big as saucers.
"Oh, just a can of Mountain Dew to give her some energy for her game." I said, shrugging it off.
"Ohhhhh...I would never do that. I make my kids stay away from anything bad for them. Water or milk only for us!" She said, with a completely snotty voice. You can imagine.
"Oh, well, it's one can, and we don't give it to her all the time." I replied.
"But it's full of horrible chemicals that does bad things to their body! You shouldn't put those things in their bodies."

At this point, my friend and I started talking quickly to avoid this crazy lady and where the conversation was going.

When it was her turn, Crazy Lady ordered an apple and a water. I ordered a Mountain Dew for Macy and a Pepsi for Kaylin.

And Macy played very well at her game.

Oh, man. Here we go again.

Currently, there are 7 inches of fresh snow on the ground outside. It's so very pretty, but it also means we have Snow Day #4 tomorrow, and probably Snow Day #5 Friday. There goes my week-long spring break. :(

Roads are bad out there. I slid into the curb (or maybe the grass, it was covered in snow) on my way home (shhhhh....don't tell Bobby). My friend Angee works downtown. She called me at 5:00 and said she'd left her office at 3:30, and had barely gone anywhere in that amount of time. I picked up her daughter from day care, and she got to my house about 7:00. Took her 3 1/2 hours from downtown---a trip that normally takes 20. I saved her $60--she would have been one hour late, and it's $1 a minute!

Kaylin still has a bad ear, so sledding might be out tomorrow. We'll see. Otherwise, we'll hibernate in the house and play Wii!

Kaylin's birthday picture blow-out

Daddy lighting the candles on her cake...she wanted this beach one with flip-flops. So appropriate when it's 12 degrees outside, but whatever. You're only 7 once, right?

Blowing out the candles...

All the lovely ladies before getting in the pool. They were quite anxious at this point, but were good sports.

Not one of my my children, but I loooovvvveee this shot! How cool is it??

Kaylin and two of her buddies...they did this all night long!

Of course Macy was there too...

Attempting to get a picture of all the girls jumping in at one time.

This is Haley, their current favorite baby-sitter. I paid her to hang out in the pool with the kids, mainly so I wouldn't have to jump in fully-clothed to save someone. She had kids hanging on her all night long. She definitely earned her money's worth.

I love doing these pool parties. No party planning, no entertaining the kids...they just splash and play for 2 hours!

Kaylin is 7 today!

Kaylin is 7 today! Hard to believe she's already 7.

7 things I love about this little girl (yes, she's my little girl and always will be)

1. Her blue eyes and blond hair--she's the only one in our little family with blue eyes and blond hair, and I love that!
2. She's named after me, her grandma Jane and her grandma Maggie.
3. Her desire to be just like her big sister, even though it drives Macy crazy.
4. How she has no meat on her bones--she's the teeny, skinniest little thing.
5. Her wacky sense of humor...tonight she told me, "Did you know you can go to Turkey, eat turkey, and be a turkey?" Ha!
6. She's my snuggle-buddy. She loves to cuddle up next to me, and is always in my "personal space". She's always holding my hand, or wanting me to hold her.
7. Finally, at least for this list, the way she plays swordfight on the Wii. Hard to explain, you will just have to see it, but she beats the crap out of her opponenet, and it looks so funny!

Baby girl has had a rough birthday...can't decide if she has an ear infection or just swimmer's ear, but she's been uncomfortable most of the day. She did, however, get into all her new Barbie's, so it wasn't all that bad.

She had a big party last night at the local hotel that rents out their pool. Pictures to come later, but she had a great time!!

Happy birthday, my sweet Kaylin!