Our New Castle

We got rid of the slide since it took up so much room and the girls didn't use it a whole lot, Brad got a little excited about the curvature and it was a pretty fast slide... SO I thought it would be cool to attach a rock wall onto their bunkbeds. My wonderful mother in law, Donnamay was in town and she helped design this incredible castle, check it out!!! The left tower covers the ladder so they go into the tower to go up the ladder, and then they can climb the wall to go up as well.

Minnie Mouse

Well, we are finally moved. What a relief. I hate moving. Seriously, this is move number 17 I believe in our 7 1/2 years of marriage. And Brad isn't even in the army! You'd think by now that I'd be used to it and it'd be no big deal, but holy cow, I'm SO DONE! We finally got a house that we can grow into rather than out of, so I'm very grateful that I don't think we'll be moving in a year, (cross our fingers) I think we'll be here for a while. Tori's school is going so well for her, she loves it, and we really love the house and the area... so, onto the story of Minnie Mouse.

The girls got Mouse Trap for Christmas from Grandma (Donnamay) and I haven't played that game for like 20 years, holy cow, I used to love that game! I remember how fun it was putting it together and we could put it together in like 3 minutes flat. Well, we got it out and I started trying to piece it together and after about 30 minutes of trying to figure out the directions and look on the box for the picture, I could NOT figure it out! I was quite dissapointed and felt like this must be a true sign of aging. We realized upon the excitement of opening the game up as a gift, the girls were taking the pieces apart from the plastic pieces that were garbage and they forgot the all important blue straight piece that pushes up the hand onto the diving board which makes the ball fall on the teetertotter thingy which catapults the diving man into the bowl which makes the big red trap fall on the mice. SO... we had to dig through the garbage to find that little piece to make it all work. I'm guessing it'll just be a matter of 2 times playing the game before we lose another all important piece, but we'll see.

So... back onto the story. After a long days work of cleaning out our old apartment we came back and made some of those yummy fajitas by Tyson in the bag that are only $5.00 (if you haven't tried them, I highly recommend them)and as we are enjoying our meal, Dennis, Brad's Uncle who is here helping us move saw a mouse scurry from our bedroom to the living room and back into the bedroom. We are in a new home, new construction, and I of course put my legs up on my chair and started breathing quite rapidly (no screaming or squeeling at all thank you) while the boys did their boy thing. They went into our bedroom with a pair of gloves.

Now, as a sidenote, I have quite a vast amount experience under my belt with catching mice. I used to catch at least 1 a week, although those were shrews, but in my old big house by Pleasant Valley School, we got those all the time, the cat would bring them in half dead, they'd revive themselves, and multiply of course. SO... back onto the story.

While they were walking into my room with gloves I told Brad, "you're going to want a bowl, you can't catch a mouse with gloves, they're too fast!" He kinda blew me of like, whatever, I'm a man, and went on the hunt. They looked around to find it, Brad and Dennis, and had no luck, so Brad came back out to finish his dinner in the dining room. A few minutes later, Dennis yells, "BRAD!" So Brad rushes in there, and they continue on their hunt. Well, long story a little less long, after a few chases and pounces and dropping it onto my bed (Yeah, I know, yuk!) they finally got a hold of it, with their gloves, NO BOWL!

So, in the midst of the chase in the beginning, Abbie ran in there and got in the middle of it all, and Brad had to carry her out so they wouldn't run into her and of course he wasn't happy she was in there, and she wasn't happy she wasn't, so she started crying pretty hard. I held her on the couch and tried to distract her but she kept saying, "I wanna see the mouse!" So I decided we should name it. I said, "do you think its a boy or a girl?" She stopped the histaria and said, "A girl." I said, do you think we should name it Minnie?" And she agreed. SO, we put it in a tupperwear which I threw out because I couldn't bring myself to use it again, sorry Mom (it was yours before), but Abbie was so excited to see Minnie and feed her and water her and then we tried to wake Tori up who had fallen asleep hours ago, but she wouldn't wake up at all, so she'll be all mad tomorrow, but it was quite the excitement at the Brockbanks tonight with Minnie Mouse.

So tying in the story of Mouse Trap, Abbie had gone upstairs and gotten the red trap thingy from the game of Mouse Trap for Dennis to catch the mouse with and I thought it was so hilarious that she wanted him to use it. Since she wasn't in there, she left it in there for him and afterwards she picked it up and went to Dennis and said, "Did you use the Mouse trap?" He laughed and kindly lied, "Of course I trapped the mouse with that!" And she was so pleased. And so there you go. I was so mad I didn't think to take a picture of it so I could put it on here until Brad had already let it go and I was like "NO! That was blogworthy, and I have NO PROOF!"

Pics for Brad

My best friend, Kalli, here in TX took these for me to give to Brad for Christmas, I think they turned out pretty dang well.

Santa Saga Part II

READ PART I FIRST!!!


So it was worth all the lies. Tori is one of the biggest believers out there I think. She said, "I didn't think it was going to be a good Christmas this year, but now its the BEST CHRISTMAS of all time!"

She was VERY pleased with the presents and gifts and quite dissapointed in Santa for the Bratz gift. LOL.

So after the gift opening, Brad tells the girls we need to go give a gift to someone who is really in need (family tradition) and Tori says, "Daddy, I'm going to give my Bratz toy to Olive. (her friend from church)" I thought that was hilarious, she said she didn't want it, and she could give it to someone else. I assured her that Olive had plenty of toys for Christmas.

Last night Brad told the girls that an elf would come with Santa to wrap the presents while they were sleeping. I did such a poor job wrapping, I thought it was hilarious. Brad said that Tori would say that Santa's elves are bad gift wrappers. So this morning Tori says, "Santa's elf is not that good of a wrapper." I laughed quietly and went and told Brad who was in our room at the time. Do we know her well or what!?!

So anyway, the girls are pleased, and I'm totally stoked that we spent about $100 total this year for Christmas, and the girls are completely satisfied. PHEW! We pulled it off!

Santa Claus - Not for young readers PART I

So now that my children are old enough to really get into this Christmas thing, and really start to believe, it creates a more dramatic and complicated Christmas than I ever thought it would. As a child, Christmas just is what it is. You don't realize all that your parents do to make it so special because in your mind, its magic. But now that I am the parent, trying to make all the magic and work a full-time job, its VERY HARD! Of course i didn't go out and buy gifts in November, why would I do that when I still have plenty of time, right? Well, we weren't going to get a ton of presents anyway this year, but I found myself buying presents the week before, with the children there, because I had no one to watch them... and I thought, I'll get the Santa presents later... so we went on Monday to get the Santa presents... Brad was going to stay in the car with the girls, Tori was sleeping, and Abbie... well, she had to go potty of course. So I had to take her inside with me, and by the time we went all the way to the very back of the store, I wasn't about to take her all the way to the car and then go back inside to get the gifts. So I'm trying to work it all out in my head how I'm going to make this work. So I start with, "You have to close your eyes..." Then I realize there's no way that's going to work, so then I get desperate with, "This is from Santa, he gave me money to buy your gift." I thought that would work till I told some lady in line that and she about hit me in the head and gave me the most disgusted look I've ever seen. My face turned red with embarrasment as I apparently made like the worst parental Christmas mistake there is... Abbie really is oblivious though, she doesn't really care. So I thought that might fly, as I made her promise not to tell Tori. Well I left it in the car last night, and today as we were driving to a meeting Tori goes, "You got Barbie and the Diamond Castle!?!" I couldn't believe it. I'm so stupid. SO... there goes that Santa gift... maybe its better anyway since I totally screwed it up with Abbie being there... so all day I'm debating, what should I do? Should I just give up and tell them the truth? But all day they are asking us things about Santa like, "How does he get here? How does he know if we're good? How does he see us? When is he going to be here?" Etc Etc and Brad and I are just filling their head with these make believe stories aka LIES and I'm just thinking to myself, "I can't believe I am sitting here lying to my child... and for WHAT?!" So we went to Costco to go get WALL-E and two toys that can be from Santa... but of course we have to take the kids into Costco because they are too ansy to stay inside the car, so we decide to split up. I go pick up the photos that I got printed for Brad (surprise) and guess what, he has the debit card, so I have to spill the beans that I'm at the photo lab, asking him for his debit card (I didn't have mine with me) so he comes over, tries to hide the girls gifts under a t-shirt he was buying for me, the girls start snooping, and Wall-E falls out! SO, then we have to pretend that we have to put it back, which then sends the girls into tantrums, so Brad takes them to the car, I go change their gifts (except Wall-E because of course I "put that back"). So we went through all that just to get them presents from Santa. On the way home from Costco Tori is crying that it doesn't seem like Christmas this year because we don't have a Christmas tree or stockings (and where is Santa going to put our presents if there aren't stockings) and no SNOW! We can't have Christmas with NO SNOW! So I decide to take the opportunity to share with her the TRUE meaning of Christmas, and how Christmas is in our hearts and the meaning, etc. etc.

So Tori put out the 8 carrots for the 8 reindeer and 2 cookies, and a cup of milk in front of our fireplace, thank goodness we have one of those! And Brad comes in after a quick trip to Walgreens since they are open till 10:00 to get milk, he comes in with 2 bags and declares that he no longer is allowed to go to the store alone because he spent $40.00 As he walks in, he tips over the glass of milk which spills all over the carpet and he has this really mad look on his face, and I just start busting out laughing. I say, "Brad, its okay, you can laugh, its funny." So he decides to smile a little and then shows me how he got stockings for the girls and some candy to fill them, and get this... he got them BRATZ Pez candy because we never get them any Bratz stuff and so Tori will think, there's no way it was Dad, it had to be Santa because he doesn't know we don't get Bratz stuff... tricky tricky. So anyway, that's the part 1 of our Santa Saga, I think tomorrow morning might be worth all the lies, but I'll let you know. I guess they can have one more year to their childhood innocence.

Merry Christmas Y'all

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Coodie Bugs

Coversation while laying down with Abbie:

Abbie: "Mom, Tori got coodies."

Me: "Ohh, really, how did she get coodies?"

Abbie: "from a boy at her old school, cause he kissed her (on the cheek), boys give girls coodies."

Me: "Oh wow, if boys give coodies, how come I don't get them from Daddy?"

Abbie (smiling): "Cause he's a MAN!"

Doing some research for this story, I found a term in the dictionary for coodie bugs:

"a young girl's greatest fear of boys..."