WOW... wow.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning finally letting my body agree with my head that its time to get up. So I got up and started cleaning things up a bit when I heard some laughing and talking in the girls room. It was still dark out and I thought, wow, what are they doing up? Their light in their room was off, and I just thought it pretty odd. I opened the door and VOILA... it was CLEAN! They were just putting their last toy away! Tori went to bed at 7:00 last night, so she got up early, thought it was still night time because it was dark out, and decided that she'd better get her room clean for the house fairy before morning, so she woke up Abbie, and they cleaned it all before 6:30 in the morning. Seriously, this works! Prior to this there isn't anything I could have done to or for Tori to get her to clean it by herself without asking, let alone "in the middle of the night" I'm just amazed. THANK YOU HOUSE FAIRY!!! www.housefairy.org

House Fairy

Sometimes I blog just to get the other blog entry further down in the list, I hate being reminded about the "caca" incident, so I'm putting this on because its a much more pleasant entry. My wonderful sister introduced us to the House Fairy.

http://www.housefairy.org

Its done wonders for us, as it will for your family. I think its the cutest thing and Tori has responded so well. The house fairy is Santa Clause's sister and she comes when you least expect it to make sure your room is clean and bed is made, etc., and if it is, she leaves a surprise, and if its not, she only leaves her fairy dust so you know she came, and she also leaves a note. You can pretty much tell your child anything you want through the house fairy and they accept it and listen to it, like, "Next time you need to be nicer to your sister," or "make sure you don't leave your toys in the living room," or "Make sure to do your chores" or "have a better attitude tomorrow" and the kids really listen! I told Abbie she needed to help without complaining and let her sister teach her how to clean, and SHE DID! I'm just shocked. Anyway, check it out, its definitely worth trying. Its actually motivating me to clean my room too cause Tori keeps saying, "Mom, the house fairy didn't leave you a treat cause your room is dirty."

Here's a good one for you

First of all, I always try to have pictures on my blog posts, but here's one I purposely did not include.

It all started out like a normal day. I woke up early, around 6:30, got ready, got Tori off to school, and started work. Things were going great until *sniff sniff* something STINKS! And it smells like Poop! From here on out I will use the term Caca. I believe that is Spanish for Poop, and since we're here in TEXAS, I think that's appropriate. I'm doing this to soften the disgusting nature of the following...

SOOOooooo... as I was saying, I smelled Caca, and it wasn't pleasant. I figured it was the cat doing her business in the kitty litter, as her caca always smells quite strongly and nasty, so I went to go clean the kitty litter. It was empty, and the smell was still there. So i sighed and looked all over the bathroom and closet floor, trying to find the source of the disgusting smell. I looked all over going in circles trying to find it, but to no avail.

I was pretty perplexed, trying to use my sniffer to figure out the location, but the whole bathroom smelled nasty, so it was hard to figure out what area it was coming from. Finally, as I was leaving the bathroom, I noticed some liquid on the floor right next to our little trashcan that we had by the door. I thought it was odd that there was liquid on the floor so I opened up the lid (one of those step on cans). All I saw in the shadow of the lid was a dirty diaper with dark around it.

Now I thought to myself, the last time a friend was here with a baby that had diapers was probably around 3 weeks ago. Now granted I'm sure this stinks, I'm positive that the source of this caca smell is not from this diaper, as that has been there for 3 weeks without me knowing. So I closed it and kept looking, but looked back at it and tried to figure out why there was liquid coming out of the bottom of the garbage can, which had no liner in it because we never used it... so I thought.

So I decided to empty the miniature garbage can into the large garbage can and that's where the fun began...

I'm going to spare you from all the gory details of what it looked like and smelled and leave that to your imagination, I'll tell you how it happened.

Abbie enjoys scooping the cat caca from the kitty litter with the scoop every time she goes caca. She has told me that she has either put it in the toilet and flushed it or put it in the garbage can. Well, I assumed the garbage can she meant was the one RIGHT NEXT to the kitty litter that had a garbage bag in it. Apparently for the last 3 weeks, she has been putting the cat caca into this miniature garbage can, with no liner...

So what about the liquid you ask? I was perplexed as well. The conversation went like this:

"Abbie, did you go potty in the garbage can?"
"NO, I did not."
"Abbie, are you sure you didn't go potty in the garbage can?"
"Nope, I didn't."
"Abbie, did you spray the water bottle in the garbage can?"
"No."
"Abbie, I promise you, I won't be mad, and you won't get in trouble if you did go potty in the garbage can, did you?"
(Abbie pauses, looks deep in my eyes to see if I'm telling the truth)
"I was just kidding, I did go potty in the garbage can."

So let me explain. My wonderful daughter Abigail who is the most adorable child in the world, seems to think its a good idea to go #1 in the garbage can. I don't know why, I don't know HOW, but she does. She started at my Mother's house last April for some really odd reason, and admitted it a few weeks later and continued to do this about once a week in my little garbage can. And I had thought she had quit doing that after a few months. Well, apparently NOT, because there was PLENTY of #1 in that garbage can to make a nice outhouse out of it to greet me this morning with all of its glory.

So i think this was 3 weeks worth of #1 from Abbie and #2 from the cat, and trust me, it was worse than ANY outhouse you have EVER been in. Especially since I got so up close and personal while I cleaned it out. It soaked in bleach in the tub after a good rinsing and I put my hands in the bleached water to bleach my hands, and then I've scrubbed them about 8 times now thoroughly, and somehow, my hands, still have a hint of outhouse on them. Definitely by far, wins the most disgusting mess I've ever cleaned up award.

There's a good laugh at my expense for you :)

Adorable Abbie

So Abbie has gained this new Independence with preparing her own food. It could be the fact that I refuse to cook for her every 20 minutes (no joke, she really asks me that often) and that I work during the day on the computer and can't just get up all the time to cook her food, but she has come to the realization that she truly CAN COOK! So Tori helped her yesterday afternoon make her own Mac N Cheese in the microwave. It turned out great and she was so proud of herself she wouldn't even share with her sister. But when Tori made her own, Abbie asked for more and Tori was reluctant but after some gentle guidance (the golden rule) Tori gave her some. Well, some wasn't enough and Abbie wanted more. So she decided to make her own, again. Well this time Tori didn't help her. I was behind my computer when I heard some popping noises in the microwave. I of course got up quickly, ran to the microwave, and found a sippy cup without a lid full of dry macaroni. Abbie was waiting to the side of the microwave ready for her magical mac n cheese to come out perfect and was quite disappointed with the smoke and burned popcorn smell that still radiates our home 18 hours later. It even melted the cup! You can't help but laugh and give her a big hug at her attempt to cook for herself. Adorable Abbie.

OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA OKLAHOMA!!!!

So Brad and I decided to drive to the border, get out of Texas and see the world. Oklahoma is about an hour and 15 minute drive from home so we decided to venture out and see what its like. Well, its definitely the middle of nowhere in hickville. Now I know that we were in some podunk town on the outskirts of Oklahoma but HOLY COW, it really is out there. For the first 10 miles or so there are no exits. Now I don't know how far you have to go to find an exit, we didn't take the time to drive that far. Instead of exits, they have little dirt roads that are directly off the freeway and little turn around areas too, so we slammed on our brakes to turn around since there was really nothing to look at, and then sped up as fast as we could to keep up with traffic until we found a dirt road to go and see the scenery. The first picture I got was right off the freeway it was a rundown house, I thought, wow, this is a picture to take for the blog, just what Oklahoma looks like, this and lots of little RVs and trailers! We got stuck on a dirt road (never saw a paved road besides right along the freeway) that had a train we had to wait for, and then that road led to some other dirt road that had dogs and their puppies all along it, I never realized how small Chihuahua puppies are, holy cow. They surrounded our car and I was just waiting for some old guy to come out with a rifle telling us to leave. We didn't see a soul until we got back on the road that leads to the freeway. We decided to stop at the border of Oklahoma and TX and get a picture with the nice big LoneStar :)

Back to Old School

I found this site on Becky Pulham's blog and thought I'd try it out, its not very easy, but it sure is funny. Anyway, I thought I looked like my Mom in a lot of these pics. What do you think?

International "Talk Like A Pirate" Day

Yes, I know. I had no idea too. Today I was invited to celebrate the International "Talk Like A Pirate" Day on September 19th. Good thing too cause I would have forgotten all about this famous holiday. *Phew*! Well I'm excited. I'm in charge of bringing a side dish and a dessert in a Pirate Theme. Anyone have any suggestions? I'd like to get a little creative :) AND NO FISH!!! So let me know what you think.