My house is CLEAN! Almost....

Well -- I got my living room clean -- this took alot of work. It seems that my house has been overrun by baby things -- saucers, high chairs, small chairs, toys, diapers... etc. All of it accumulates in the living room because that's where Brent puts it. Well, I have cleaned it and spread it out. And now, I have only my table left to clean up. Then I cleaned my bedroom. This took a massive amount of work and effort. I moved my bookcase, my bed, everything. I also swept out under the bed and all sorts of things. I scrubbed the floor and the windows and even cleaned my closets and put up a canopy to match my bed. 

I have also continued to work on my yard... I picked up all the tiny pieces of a bucket that the dog tore apart. Alina helped me a bunch too - she was super cute about it.

This morning Raziel woke up at 4:30am. I don't known why he's been doing that lately, this is the second time. I think it has something to do with the fact that I feed him oatmeal and applejuice instead of putting him to bed with a bottle. I am trying to break his habit of sleeping with a bottle in the crib or in his mouth before he has teeth to rot out, but he has started screaming precisely at 4:30 both nights I've done this. I went in there with a bottle to get him to go back to sleep. He was so adorable, I wish I'd taken a picture. He was standing up in his crib at the end but he's so short that his little head was the only thing I could see over the end of the crib. He was all red and purple from crying. I gave him the bottle and he was so excited that he fell over trying to take it from me. I tucked him back in and he slept until after I left the house at 8:30am. I'm thinking that maybe if I put him down with a bottle of formula then swap it for a bottle of water that he won't freak out when he wakes up at 4:30am and has nothing to drink or eat. Maybe it'll keep him calm till 7 or 8 am. I'm not really sure what else to do about it. 

Well, I'm tired and I have work to do so that's all for today. 

Story Time!

This morning Alina informed me that she was going to have story time with her teddy bear and "bunny raggit." This rabbit is actually has a family history... I believe it was given to David when there was a foreign exchange student staying with my parents. I inherited this rabbit and named her "connie" for my tea parties and playing with my Samantha doll. I brought it when I moved out not thinking my children would be interested but that it would probobly be one of those things that sits on the shelf and you know its special but aren't allowed to play with it. Well, Alina loves stuffed animals and has taken "Connie" as her own. She tucked her and this huge teddy bear into a pallet she made on the floor and found a baby blanket to cover them up with. Then she laid down and told them a story about Grapes and Larryboy and Bumblyburg *these were the only words I identified* This was absolutely precious and I can't get over how sweet it was. 

Also --- Alina read her grover monster book to her Nene yesterday. This was equally precious. She got the book and sat down and Nene read it to her. Then Alina took it, said "Alina's turn" and proceeded to read it allowed. "Oh no, there's a munistner!" "please don't turn the page!" "you turned the page!" "please don't turn another page!" "you made a mess!" "all right all right!" "you are strong!" "oh silly me. I am the munistner." If you are familiar with this book, you will know how sweet this is! (see previous blog!) 

Raziel and Alina took a 2 hour nap yesterday. I was able to get half of my back yard mowed! If you've ever seen my yard, you know this is a huge deal. If you haven't, just imagine a jungle that has never seen a human being before and that's sort of how it looked. I now have a manageable front yard - nice, even -- and a halfway manageable backyard. I even moved Odin (our 120lb puppy) to the back tree by the shed so he doesn't tear up my front yard grass. Brent is even talking about getting some seed and spreading it in the yard so it grows grass instead of having dirt and clay patches everywhere. Tomorrow I am going to get the second half of my backyard done during naptime. Brent says the babies sleep for 2 and a half hours when he has them. That's crazy to me. But, I let them sleep and they went to bed just fine at night so that's the plan. Maybe I can even get someone with a truck to haul off the old trampoline and swingset I have rusting back there. I'm going to look at the pool and see about getting it hauled off too. 

Tomorrow I also have to get my living room cleaned. LOL. the joys of being a mommy with too much planned and not enough time or money. I guess that's life. Owell, at least my kids are perfect! 

The rat in my attic

Well it was so horrible I have to share. Thank God, it has nothing to do with my children! 

Anyways, about two days ago, Wednesday I think, I came into work and smelt the most horrific thing I'd ever smelt in my life. It made me want to puke. Being a mommy, I went straight to work cleaning things. All good mommies have, at one point or another, neglected a trash can, toilet, fridge or just the kitchen in general and things start to smell. And, those good mommies smell it and proceed to clean until the smell has been resolved. 

Well, I cleaned both bathrooms. I took out all the trash. I cleaned the fridge. I cleaned the microwave. I cleaned behind the fridge and microwave. I looked under tables and everything. Well, I found nothing gross and the smell didn't go away. I figured maybe I was crazy. I sprayed some lysol and set to work. First customer that walked in goes "Eeeh, I don't mean to be rude, but what is that smell?" 

I apologized to the man and helped him with his phone, conversating the whole time about what it might be. I explained I'd cleaned thouroughly and couldn't find anything gross. Well, he believed that something had died in here. 

Charlestonians, this happens alot here, apparently. I was shocked because of the number of things dead on the highway regularly. My mother in law had a possum die under her house and that was nasty. I have never had the pleasure (HAH) of such an issue. 

The worst I've had in my house was mice -- small ones -- about 3 inches long. I wanted to be humane and catch them in boxes and set them free. This got out of hand quickly and we had to spend about $100 in poisen and repellants and other things to finally get them all out. They multiply quickly. I don't want to consider how many mice were in my house but it took 6 months to get it all cleaned up and thrown out -- all the poop and dead mice remains and things they'd destroyed. It was horrific. 

Anyway, I figured "oh a rat? they don't make that much smell. We've had rats in my house and it wasn't really this bad." The man laughed. "How big were they?" he asked. "About 3 inches." "Those are mice. I mean a rat." The man holds up his hands and shows me that he means a varmit the size of a cat. I almost fainted at the prospect of such a creature running around above my head all day long. What would happen if it fell through on a customer -- or me? Dear God, this was an awful concept. 

Well the day drug on and I was alone Wednesday so I had no clue as to what to do about it. Maybe, I thought, it will just go away. Maybe it's not a rat, someone just puked or something and it will disentigrate and stop smelling. LOL I was wrong. Thursday, it was even worse. When I opened the door on Thursday morning, I almost threw up. I looked at my co-worker and told him I'd cleaned everything and didn't know what to do about it. He concluded it was indeed something dead, then. We agreed it was in the ceiling in the men's bathroom. We called the landlord. He came in, smelt it and left. He agreed it was something dead. I propped the doors open to let us breathe. 

A pest control man came in, took one look at the ceiling in the bathroom and told us 2 things that he knew for sure. #1 - something was dead. He said the type of flies we had around only came to eat something that had died. (gross) #2 - he didn't have ladder high enough to get it out. Well, the landlord spent all day supposedly trying to find someone to get it and according to him, "no one will do it." So, at 5:30 I took over and called everyone google yellow pages gave me until I got someone to come get it out. Cost the landlord $90. The poor guy almost threw up when he opened the ceiling tile. He had to come down and go outside for 5 minutes and smoke because he couldn't bear the smell. 

At 6:00pm I left. LOL. It wasn't my problem anymore. The poor man pulled out a rat that was about a foot long and weighed about 5lbs. I came in today and lit candles all over the store. About 2 hours of burning and it doesn't smell so bad in here. 

This was my adventure for the day. I couldn't believe it. It was ridiculous. Creatures the size of full grown cats are in my attic. They laid out poisen and told us to listen for more. The pest control people will be back to check in a week or two. Apparently, they think several rats may be up there. *shivers* 

YUCK

Bedtime is now a joy!

Okie dokie so here's the scoop. 

I talked to my wonderful mother about Alina being so clingy to me all the time and not ever - EVER- - wanting to have her daddy lay her down for the night. She would scream and holler and yell and beg for mommy and it just broke Brent's heart every time. I'd had enough - Brent and Alina were going to have a good relationship - regardless of what she wanted. So, my mom suggested that Brent have a different kind of bedtime routine from the one I use for Alina. Well, that night we gave it a shot. 

I dress Alina in her pj's, brush her hair and teeth, rock her and sing to her 3 songs - Truly Scrumptious, Jesus Loves You and Jesus Loves the Little Children. Then, I lay her down in her crib, tell her good night and to let me know when she wakes up in the morning. Well, this wasn't working for Brent. So, he took a different approach. (this is how creative my husband is.) 

Brent & Alina's Routine

 1) Brent and Alina get in Alina's cib. She is always thrilled to have company in there.

2) Brent asks Alina who she wants to hear a story about.

3) Alina almost always says Larryboy -- sometimes Junior, Petunia, Bob, or someone else too if Brent prompts her for a second person. 

4) Brent proceeds to tell a silly story about how Larryboy could not sleep because some badguy was making noise and the mayor calls him to get him to help all of Bumblyburg go to sleep. 

5) Alina giggles like a silly child that has had candy for the first time

6) Brent tells Alina at the end that then Larryboy laid down and went to sleep and that it's her turn too. 

7) Alina and Daddy share hugs and kisses and Brent gets out of the crib and Alina goes straight to sleep. 

It's a beautiful thing -- works wonders. Last night I asked Alina if she wanted me to put her down and she said "No, I want story time!" 

I was so excited because Brent heard her and his face just lit up like she'd said the most precious thing in the world. It was amazing to me how something so little made him so happy. I was excited that she wanted him to put her down. We've made some real progress! 

brent got the job!

So great news! brent took the tech job! this means he will be in the car part instead of the registers. he is excited because its a decent raise and more hours. he still doesn't get opening shifts and has to work all day sunday so i will be going to church alone but its almost an $150 difference on his check and he is sure he will enjoy it more. also the store manager said it would be 6 mos before he can get promoted again but that would be 'perfect timing' so we are pretty excited about whatever that means.

i am trying to be positive about it. he is excited. his supervisor agreed to give him mondays and fridays off and that will be good for the movie. i will miss him at church but owell. change is unavoidable.

pray for me. i need encouragement.

It's been a while

So, I know its been a while, but I am a very busy person lately -- work, kids, movie, paying bills, not paying bills, etc. 

I'm just generally pretty stressed out today. I'm working alone and haven't had 5 mintues where I'm not trying to do 3 things at once. Right now I am loading a phone on one cpu and software upgrading on the other. I know. wow. 

my brain hurts; i have too much happening. i feel bad that i dont spend more time cleaning and playing with my kids but that's life right now. i work all the time and still am a month and a half behind on my morgatge. And, we had this company that was supposed to help us fix our credit and our girl went on leave and now i have nothing happening on that end and a bunch of people i owe money to that i told we would work out things through the credit agency and now they arent doing their job. i am so discouraged today. 

owell. thats life. 

My Mother's Day

My mother's day was wonderful. I was so sure that Brent had forgotten about it -- he hadn't said anything. But, Sunday morning he woke me up with a boquet of roses and a card that was so sweet. It has 4 little flower people on the front and a caterpillar. He said that He's the big blue flower and I'm the big pink flower and the two little flowers are Alina and Raziel and the bug is our dog, Odin (although, Odin is actually bigger than Alina, Raziel or myself). It says "Once upon a time, on a day that looked like any other day..." then you open it, "... someone like no one else came along and made life into something that would never be the same... That's you. That's my life. That's why you're someone special that means so much to me. Happy Mother's Day." I thought that it was so sweet -- I had to share it with you. 

Alina got me a card. It has a little girl on the front that has a tube of toothpaste and she is squirting a ton of it all over this toothbrush. I think it is fitting because Alina loves to brush her teeth. It says "Thanks, Mom, for being patient with me as I was figuring out right from wrong..." then you open it and it says "I'm not done with that, by the way. Happy Mother's Day." She signed it herself. It is so sweet. You can make out the A but the rest is sort of scribblies. Brent helped her write her name a second time so I would know who it was from. LOL like I wouldn't know. 

Raziel also "got" me a card. It has a little boy banging on some drums. It says "A mom is someone who can sit through a drum solo" and on the inside "and still hear beautiful music in it" This one I find very funny because Brent brought in his drums from the shed last night and cleaned them and then played them for a while. Raziel, in his playpen not 5 feet away from Brent, stayed asleep. Apparently the noise didn't bother him. 

New cutest thing Alina did also -- she couldn't say happy mother's day so instead she said happy momma-thurs day. it was adorable

Long Rehearsal, Short Sleep

So we had a rehearsal last night and I am so excited because everything is coming together... I am sad though because 2 or 3 nights a week I won't see my babies all summer. Well, when I am rich and famous I will bring my kids to my production meetings like Marta Kaufman did on Friends. Until then I have to grin and bear it. I am excited that my sister, Alisha, is coming up in June though. We've decided to keep using our normal sitter for 4 days a week like we have been because she said she'd have to try and replace my kids if we took them out for a month. She's the best sitter (and cheapest) I have been able to find so we decided to keep using her even when Alisha is up here. Don't worry, auntie shasha will have plenty of time with the babies. Brent and I would love a date -- its been a long time. And, she will be on baby duty quite a bit during movie filming. I have been using Jennifer Miolen a ton for this as of late and I don't want to wear her out. I'm hoping to make it though the filming without having to watch my own kids. I know as a mommy that's awful but I simply cannot mix work and play and it would be super-unprofessional if I had a baby crying in the background in my movie. 

Well I am simply absolutely starving and that's really all I think I can say right now except that rehearsal went well but we got back at midnight, babies were already asleep. I am so glad to be off tomorrow, but I have alot of cleaning to do. 

Life is good today

I finally fell into a beautifully deep sleep of exhaustion last night and woke up refreshed and ready for the day. I actually woke up to the alarm clock wrapped up in Brent's arms and was just as happy as could be this morning. 

Babies slept well. Alina was a bit grumpy this morning. Brent and another mechanic from Walmart looked at his car last night and it works again. They think it was stuck between gears because it was out of transmission fluid. Might be a leak somewhere, but an easy fix that Brent said that if he'd been thinking clearly he would have known that yesterday. 

Nothing extra fun to report on the babies. I walked around with Raziel some last night holding his hands and letting him walk between my legs. He is strong enough to walk but he gets so excited that he doesn't focus on balancing and lunges forward when he does it himself. I'm trying to get him used to the idea so that he won't be so entirely overexcited that he falls on his face. 

Thats all to say for today.  No tears or angry yelling at God in the car on the way to work.  Oh, if you have facebook, look at this God's Chisel link that I posted yesterday... its amazing. 

still no sleep

Last night again the babies were angels. Raziel didn't even wake me up to get a bottle this morning. He found the one that was still in his crib (empty) and sucked on that happily til I checked on him, which I know is terribly horrible and whatnot but he'll be okay. I fed him when I got him up. Alina got in bed, no problems, and woke up with a smile wearing her "didasares" (dinosaurs) nightgown and then putting on "Arry boy" (Larryboy) for the day.... still couldn't sleep though

After I left however the day plummeted downward. Apparently I forgot to take Raziel's carseat out of my car last night and I drove all the way to work (30 mins) before me and Brent realized it. Its my boss' day off. He had to come in so I could drive back. Well, I get back and Brent's car won't go in reverse, so I drove Brent to work in Dalton (30 minutes), babies to sitters in Ringgold (20 minutes) and then back to work (1 hour). And, I had to call around for directions because my GPS on my phone didn't want to work because it's rainy and cloudy outside and it couldn't get satalite on where I was. I finally got back to work at noon and have sat here doing repairs and such all day.... and then I just realised that Brent has my store keys somehow and I have to get my boss to come back and lock up for me... 

Some days I'd like to get an email from God or something -- just a little note that says "hey, today's gonna suck!" It'd be nice, you know? But, I have to learn perseverance somehow. 

Good news, though. Brent got interviewed for two different jobs -- either would be a promotion. The one he really wants is a personell trainer -- he'd basically brief new hires on walmart policies and such. It's a 7-4 Mon-Sat (with a weekday off in there too) -- he would always be off on Sundays (halelu!) and never work nights! He'd get 40 hours instead of the current 36 and he'd get a dollar raise! That's gonna be about $150 more per bi-weekly check, which God knows we could use it. The other job is a CSM (customer support manager). It's part time -- 32 hours but still the dollar raise. It breaks down to almost the exact same money. He would mainly take that job because it wouldn't be part time for long, and he'd go full time very quickly.  The man who interviewed him said he'd never been so impressed by anyone and he wished he could offer Brent the job without interviewing the other candidates. This is a good thing -- Walmart requires 3 interviews per job, even if you know who you want to promote. Brent has filled in as a "dummy" interview several times before, so there's a good chance that the other two will be just that. We are hoping and praying this pans out. Brent has been put up for promotions a few times and one of his immediate supervisors doesn't want him promoted (because he takes credit for how much Brent gets accomplished) and has thrown him under the bus every time. This time, we think, is going to be different because his two other supervisors have been talking him up alot and they don't like the stupid manager and so he's got a much better chance. We will know Friday.... and I'll share when I get the word. 

That's all for now... I have a headache 

proverbs 31

---- yaaawn..

Babies are sleeping well. Alina goes to bed says "night night" with a ton of enthusiasm and seems to be excited to go to bed. Raziel, bless his growing body, downs 8 oz and wakes up around 6am for another bottle, then at 8:30 or 9 for another 4 or 5 oz. He sleeps well as long as he has eaten well. 

Brent and I are not sleeping well. I don't know why really. I guess part of it is that I saw a teeny little mouse underneath my sofa and freaked out. I've never really gotten over how bad it used to be whenever the mice took over my house. So, we bought 4 boxes of poisen and I'm sure he'll be dead before I can say "where'd he go." But... we weren't sleeping well even before that. I'm going to bed fed, showered and tired, at a decent hour. Sleeping is possible from about 10:30pm (after babies go down, I have about an hour of quality time with Brent) till 8am.... so that's like 9 1/2 hours of sleep... but I'm not sleeping. Both Brent and myself keep waking up througout the night. Brent hardly is able to fall asleep until about 3 or 4 most days. I fall asleep and then wake back up. We aren't sure why, really. 

I've been reading Proverbs 31 to make myself get up in the morning. There's a verse in it that says that a virtuous woman rises before the dawn to start her day. Well, before the dawn or not, she gets up and so must I. I am determined to model my life after this example but it's been quite a challange. 

Husband trusts her? check. Had to work very hard to earn and keep that. 

She brings him good? okay, I do my best. 

Works with her hands? check. I work very hard to keep my job. 

Gets food from afar? lol okay so I drive to walmart which is an extra ten minutes from my house but it saves us alot of money and I think that's the point here. 

Gets up before the dawn? okay, before noon. I'm really trying to get better about this. I actually get up when the alarm goes off now. Maybe I'd have more sucess at this if I slept better. 

Provides food for her family? check. I make meals more than go out, and I am very proud of this because me and Brent have come a very long way. 

Trading profitable? Yup, I always make sure that we're getting the best price on things. 

Grasps the spindle with her fingers? So I'm not sure how this manifests into current life yet.

Opens her arms to the poor? check. Even though I think we're sorta poor, I still make it a point

to give away things that we aren't using anymore. 

Clothes her family? Yes. It may not be the most expensive "scarlet robes" like the proverbs lady

but it's a work in progress. The point is that if it snows the kids are okay, and if its hot they're okay too. 

She makes covering for her bed? I'm working on sewing more and more of the things that are in my house. So far I haven't had any sucess but it takes money to be able to buy fabric so... that's on the back burner

Husband respected? Check. 

Selling linen garments? I'm thinking about getting a table at the flea market and selling things

that I make... but I have to look into it. Again, it's an investment. Clothed with Strength and Dignity? I'm hoping to start going to the gym with Brent. 

Speaks wisdom? I'm trying really hard.

Watches over the affairs of her household? Check. I think I'm pretty good at that. 

Don't eat bread of idleness? Okay, so I try... I guess I could  improve on this point. 

That's my thoughts for the day. 

FIRST STEP!!

I am soooo super excited! So, Raziel took his first little wobbly step last night! He'll be walking in no time! Brent and I have been encouraging him to crawl -- he's finally gotten to where he will scooch on his tummy, get up on his knees, take one or two crawl steps so to speak, and then lay back down and slide. He isn't interested at all in crawling, though he might just be faking us out because he made it across the entire living room in about 3 minutes the other night. Brent and I went into the kitchen to finish fixing dinner and when we came back he was on the other side of the living room about to pull the tablecloth onto him. Brent and I got him to stand up on his own for a little while (a few seconds, anyways) and he took one little step last night. It was amazing. Poor thing has absolutely no balance but hey, whatever! 

Alina has finally gotten to where she isn't afraid of the bath. She laid on her tummy and kicked her little legs and said "oh, I'm swimming!"  for like 20 minutes last night in the inch and a half of water that was in there. She also let me wash her hair. She just laid there and giggled and told me that it tickled. I am so glad that the scared-of-the-bath stage is now over. It was difficult to wash her at all and I probobly didn't wash her as much as I needed to; lol! 

Well, that's about all for today. 

Ahhhh Life is Good.

So, I know I have been absent for a few days, but life has gotten terribly busy of late and Alina has been particularly grouchy and that's no fun to write about but owell I have people bugging me to update my blog so here goes. 

Alina is absolutely thilled (as am I) with my newest purchase. I am here to tell you that I got the newest touchscreen phone that Sprint has to offer for $50 at Bestbuy. We sell this phone for $229, and the customer gets a mail in rebate of $100. I have saved about a gazillion dollars by buying it somewhere else. Now, am I going to mention this insane price to my customers? LOL no. Alina likes it because it is a big screened phone and she gets to see the photo I have of her as my background all the time. She looks at it and says "oh! it's me! It's Alina!" and its incredibly adorable. She had a very grumpy night last night because we didn't get home until bedtime but Mommy had promised we could see Nene before bedtime, so we went to Nene's house and hit bed about an hour later than usual. If you know Alina, you know how grumpy this made her. But, nonetheless, she was her beautiful happy self this morning, and wanted to wear her Blue shirt (Blues Clues). I put her in that and some super adorable capris I got at the Women's Center and it's fantastic with her little ponytail. She also has some new little Tevas (those are expensive sandals, oh non-shoe people.) Tevas are sold for $45 in her size but I got them from the Women's Center for free. Man, I love that place. Also got to grab a pack of pampers while I was over there and I am stocked for a while. 

Raziel has sucessfully changed formulas. He spit up a little this morning, but I think that had more to do with the fact that he downed 6 oz without slowing down in like 10 minutes. He was very hungry this morning, I think he's growing :-) . I now have officoally (according to WIC and everything) stopped breastfeeding him. I actually stopped when we went to NYC because it was the perfect oppurtunity, but I just now told the WIC ppl because I thought I needed the extra food package. I was wrong- - I needed the formula!! I was spending $20 a week to supplement his baby food diet with good formula. I went to WIC and got him on formula vouchers and picked up 5 cans ($65 worth) of formula for April!!! Yes, I picked the vouchers up on the 29th! I have those to "jumpstart" us and then we get 10 12.5oz cans a month and it is amazing how good the government seems to low income families -- even if the warm fuzzies are short lived because I turned on the radio and now they're talking about taxing milage on our cars and I will so be screwed if they do that. Anyways, I think the main thing that has help Raziel change is that we kept him on a milk-based formula, and the one or two times we'd tried a different one before had been soy based. I didn't know there was a difference but believe you me -- there is a huge one when it comes to his little tummy. 

And--- Alina is officially in her repeating stage. Yes, it's true. She was watching her daddy play video games and said "let's do this" and "I'm gonna kick your @$$." It was at this point Brent and I decided that its time to play the game on mute. I had to try so hard not to laugh at her -- we don't want her to think its funny to say it, but omg it's so hysterical. She only said it once or twice and we hope she didn't realize what she was saying. I mean -- I'm sure she didn't, but I hope she didn't realize it was an odd or funny thing to say. So, Brent and I have cracked down about which words - including crap and butt -- we use in front of her. And, anything with any kind of innapropriate language or content has effectively been banned for her little ears. We didn't realize she was going to start repeating things this early! Well -- lesson is learned and hopefully dealt with gracefully. 

Ok so that's all for now, I think anyways. I have alot to work on for my movie today. We've had major changes in acting -- Tyler dropped out. But, it's okay. We already had a replacement and when we finally made the switch, I suddenly had camera ops and PA's and such coming out of my ears. It's an amazing thing!! Almost like Someone planned it that way... hmmmmm