What is that noise??

This morning around 9:00 am 3 of the 4 of us were laying in our bed sleeping when I started hearing what sounded like pouring rain, and then it sounded like someone was banging on the outside of the house....and I knew what that sound meant....

HAIL!!!!!!!!!

One redeeming factor about living where we do is that we get hail, a lot!!! It was rare to see in the OC, but here we see it ALL the time!!! I still think it's neat since it's the closest I've ever been to seeing snow - but since we have a one story house it makes for a very noisy experience!

I opened up the front door and it was starting to pile up on the swing, as you can kind of see in the picture above, and I watched it bounce off the lawn. It hailed for quite a few minutes!!

Now, it's warm enough that Karyl and Greg are outside washing the cars...what crazy weather we have!!!

Saturday is a special day

This morning Karyl went to Lowe's and built a catapult - and if you ask her what she built, she will tell you (she has a thing for remembering long words!!). She had a blast and it is such a wonderful way for her and Daddy to spend some time together without Mommy around!

Then, tonight we had a "Minute to Win It" party with Greg's family (don't worry, I'm only putting pictures of Greg, Karyl and I....). It was SO MUCH FUN!!! Seriously, if you have never seen the show, go to their website and you can get all the instructions for the games they use on the show. GREAT party games!!!

This is the game where you put an Oreo cookie on your forehead and then using nothing but your facial muscles and some creativity you have to get that cookie in to your mouth....

For this one Greg and I went against each other....you had 36 cups....you had to stack them up without falling over, and then put them all back in a pile by sliding the cups down the side...It was harder than it looked on TV but fun to try.

And I won by 8 seconds....

For this one you had 15 cups on the table in front of you and using only the expelled air from a balloon you had to knock them off....it was fun, but I was out of breath afterwards!!!

This was the game where you have 6 nuts on a small stick...you have to stack the nuts one at a time on top of each other with only one hand...this was a god one!!

Even Karyl got in on the fun...we modified a few of the games so she could give them a shot. She stacked the cups and slid them down, and then she used the baseball in the nylons to knock over a few water bottles....we didn't even bother trying to get her to wear the nylons on her head like the adults had to do!!

I have some catching up to do....

Wow, I guess I've been so busy with everything else that blogging just hasn't been at the top of my priority list these past feww weeks....I think that's OK since the kids, husband and house are the things taking priority, right??

I have pictures....and I am just going to post them below with short, witty and possibly sarcastic commentaries for your viewing pleasure (and I'll try to get dates too....for posterity adn future reference and all that....)

April 17 -

Greg and Uncle David putting wood boards in the Attic for storage...I was told it was like 150 degrees up there. I know, you're wondering what on earth got David up there in the heat and messy insulation?? Note the pneumatic tool in the second picture - Offer Uncle David a chance to play with the nail gun and he's there!!

April 21 -

Day at Disneyland - We met Greg's cousin Jennifer and had a blast with her and her boyfriend Jordan for a few hours. We see her often enough there that everytime we mention we're going to Disneyland Karyl asks "Is Jennifer going to be there??" This time she was and she and Jordan definitely made us laugh...a lot. Thanks guys!!!

Yes, you're seeing it right....the trams have doors on them now!!! The funny thing....the doors don't "lock" per say - you just pull the handle like a regular door and could open them mid-ride. My question is, what moron actually fell out of the tram, prompting this interesting addition??

Look at those blue eyes!! It's rare that he sits still long enough to really look at those baby blues, let alone long enough to take a close up picture of them....they amaze me every time I see them!!!

As you can tell, there wasn't much sun out that day while we were there, but the boys being boys decided they wanted to ride Grizzly Rapids....one of those rides where you are guaranteed to get wet....and they rode it 3 times!! Boys will be boys....luckily I don't think either of them caught pneumonia!!

Karyl loves Minnie, she is the only character that she will actually get close enough to take a picture with....I still don't know what Goofy and Mickey did to tick her off, but for now Minnie has her sole affection.

April 26 -

That's right, just a few days later we were back....

Suddenly she wanted to be photographed with anything and everything...every few minutes I would hear "Mommy, take a picture of me with _______" we had fire hydrants, the "O", and lots of other things she insisted I whip out the camera for!!

May 8 -

The Lowe's Project for Mother's Day....I have some very pretty pink and white flowers in there now....

May 18 -

In 6th grade I broke my pinky finger with a handball - it snapped it all the way back so it touched the back of my hand....in High School I had knee surgery and about 3-4 days after the surgery I fell down a flight of stairs at home....About a year ago I developed gallstones and had multiple attacks....Each one of those pains seemed worse than the one before....until this...

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Please ignore the ugly toenails and dry skin...my feet have been in sandals for the past few days and I've been too lazy to break out any lotion...and the adhesive from taping the toes together has been leaving dirty marks anyways....

Now - I will be taking another picture tonight to post....

I wasn't going to because the bruising and swelling was starting to FINALLY go down and it wasn't throbbing and I was going to try to put on my tennis shoes today - and then this morning at about 12:15 am I got up to see who was sending Greg a text (Thanks David) and I hit my toe on a metal stepping stool we have in our bedroom (That's right...a step stool - without it I can't reach the stuff hanging in the closet). It hurt more than when I originally broke the stupid toe. It brought tears to my eyes, and a few choice words.....the really sad part is that I hit the stool so hard it woke Greg up and all he saw was me leaning over cursing myself for being so short and needing the step stool and trying to gain enough sense back to stumble back to my side of the bed.

Already it has swelled again and has new bruises...so later today should be interesting.

I'm seriously considering how important the fourth toe is....and whether or not I could function without it. I have a bad habit of stubbing my toes because I don't always look where I'm going when I'm in the house...and this was the second time I'd stubbed the toe since originally breaking it, but that time wasn't nearly as painful or forceful as this morning.

On that happy note - here are a few cute pics of Freddie from Thursday - he fell asleep in the Living Room for the first time (he had gotten up early) and I had to take the chance to get some cute pictures.....

Geez, is it May???

OK, so it's been a whole month since my last post - I know, what a loser I am, right??

In all fairness, up until about 3 days ago I had been through like 13 different stages of sick - all of them involving some VERY swollen tonsils, lots of headaches and generally just feeling like crud.

After the first week of misery I sucked it up the beginning of April and went to the doctor's - he laughed (as always) that I waited so long and suffered and wrote me a prescription. The pills were huge and I don't do well with even tiny old Advil...so now I was miserable and had to swallow a giant pill. I did it, but after 10 days I had dropped most of the hacking cough and still had the worst sore throat of my life.

So, what did I do?? All the moms out here will know exactly what I did - did I go back to the doctor's?? Nope, because that would require another copay and an extra drive in to Orange County that I didn't want to bother with - I just sucked it up and mentally threatened my tonsils to deflate. Did it work?? Yeah, right...

While the cough and generalized stuffiness were gone, I still had the nagging sore throat, and now I could feel lumps and after about 2 weeks of having to take Children's Chewable Tylenol before bed just to fall asleep (that's right - the chewable stuff, I told you, I can barely swallow Advil when my throat is in perfect working order) I gave in. I couldn't handle it anymore and I took a look - I think poor Greg thought I had a tumor - everything was raw and red and there were white patches everywhere (I know, ewwww....). So, I called the doctor and was reminded that sometime it pays to keep the same family doctor that you've had since you were 4 years old - he gave me a small lecture about waiting, called in another prescription and here I am, about 4 days later and no sign of a sore throat!!!

So, the reason for the detailed medical history - partly to make excuses for not posting, and partly because I'm out of work for the day and I'm still in Medical Transcriptionist mode....it's an evil place in my head that involves words like jejunostomy and cholecystectomy and I usually can't shut it off until 2pm, which is when I would be done with work.

Oh, and for those of you who made it to the bottom of this sad, sad post - In other news....

Our big screen TV died on Saturday, Karyl came in to tell me that the TV was broken and I thought maybe Freddie had reached over and pushed a button. When I went into the living room I smelled something burning and we just assumed it was the neighbors since we had all the doors open (we get an AWESOME cross breeze!!). Well, the TV picture was tinted blue (not an option I could find to reset in the menu) and I soon realized the burning was coming FROM the TV.

It was quickly unplugged and we were left with a burning smell that lingered for a day or two. We now have our old bedroom TV (I think it's like 17 inches) in the living room. It makes us giggle every time we walk in because where the King of all Big Screens used to reside is a tiny little TV...with a lot of wall showing behind it.

We have to squint to read the guide.....

And then on Sunday I noticed water dripping from under the sink - luckily I noticed it right before bed because I opened the cabinet and everything under the kitchen sink was swimming. Yep, the kitchen faucet had decided to quit too. Long story short - my amazing husband went in to action and last night not only did he replace the ENTIRE faucet (base and hose and pull-out head) but we somehow stumbled upon a wonderful employee at Home Depot who rather than making us order the part we needed, said if we brought back the old faucet they would do an even exchange for the new one!! So, we now have a BRAND NEW faucet, for free, and it looks beautiful!! The old one was corroded because the previous owner didn't take care of it but it had been there just long enough that I couldn't get it all off. Now I get to start all new - I can't WAIT to do dishes tonight. Even the water pressure is better....and this new one doesn't have the annoying ball joint to leak from.

Ah, the joys of home ownership - replacing your own leaking faucet and not having the money to replace your big screen when it gives up the ghost. Oh, and if ONE more person tells us that "now you can get a bigger and better TV" I WILL slap them. When we bought that TV we were both working and just about to get married - back then we had what I like to call unlimited big screen TV funds. Almost 5 years later and we have 2 kids, a minivan and a mortgage - that means no more big screen TV money....although we did get a great rate on refinancing, and we figure that makes up for the payments on the van....still, no big screen.

Now, I need to get the kids up so they can watch Spongebob at a much smaller scale than they are accustomed to...good thing they are too young to complain!!