the back door

so i'm out of town right now and this time with my friend izzie b (names have been changed to protect the people we know). we are actually at a conference that is rocking my world, but we are two crazy girls alone in a big city. anyways.....she is a weird person. she likes car rides and she likes to watch the sunrise while riding in the car so we started our trip at 5:30 AM!!! 5:30 AM friends...ugh. but we had a non-eventful trip and honestly it wasn't so bad. i'm weird so i had packed us ham and cheese sandwichs. we stopped several times to get out and walk. we stopped for gas somewhere a bit redneck and they sold mostly fireworks. lots and lots of fireworks. that place also had some kind of super duper blue light hand dryer. it was honestly a bit freaky. then we checked in and found we had a smoking room. it was quite smoky and so we asked for a change. no luck, but the nice lady offered to bring up an odor remover machine while we were at the conference. um....

i have had several requests for a follow up on the cheerio feast here on the homefront. well a couple weeks have passed since then and i believe i can say SUCCESS!!!! it was definitely a rough day around here. i had never seen him consume so many cheerios in all my life and he was very good at shoveling them in as a baby! i also am pretty sure he hadn't been that mad at me in several weeks. that night we had quite a discussion about meals, how much time i put into preparing, etc and on obeying/respecting our parents. the following morning he knew he had to eat whatever i prepared - no complaints or the cheerios came right back out! he patiently waited for me to serve him breakfast and he ate every last bit. then we had lunch and another joyful meal. dinner was at our friends house - he ate quite joyfully again! so saturday came and he was allowed a tad more freedom in that i gave him a few choices at both breakfast and lunch. dinner came and he started to lose it a bit ove...

...well kind of anyways! i had the chance to get away with my amazing hubby last week. it was 3 days of nothingness, but time spent with hubby and nature and oh.....the dozen of ladybugs that felt the need to make the trip with us. oh yes, friends, within about 15 minutes of checking into our room we noticed the little creatures crawling about. they kind of taunted me. we are awaiting the phone call from the hotel stating that we brought an infestation of asian beetles. so far so good! so back to the getaway.....hubby had a conference in the town we honeymooned. of course i'm up for tagging along and since my parents recently returned from 3 months in the south they were just as excited to have our kiddos. and hubby's mom was pretty excited to seek refuge here at sycamore hill to care for the dog and suck up the lady bugs that didn't make the trip with us. okay....back to the getaway one more time! when we left i packed up some work and my laptop. i fully intende...

most of you all know i have a love affair with chocolate, so it shouldn't surprise you that i took the kids for some spring break fun at the local chocolate factory. seriously, this was a pretty good tour. okay, so the tour itself was just so-so, but for $6 for all 3 of us we got 3 bags of chocolates, made our own chocolate spoon, and steal on some christmas goodies! the above mr. cocoa might have been a bit too much however - so glad they saved him for the end! my wonderful nieces joined us on this grand trip. i think they had fun, they were quite excited about the hair nets we had to wear. i think i heard them talk about wanting to make a new fashion statement with them. mapboy making his spoon....they were supposed to freeze while we were in the movie with mr. cocoa, but they didn't seem quite solid yet. mapboy was very concerned that his was melting. after a day of cheerios he desperately wanted to eat the spoon! princess making her spoon. she was much more patien...

so, i love my son. i really do, but lately his constant complaining about EVERYTHING has gotten on my nerves. one of the biggest battles of late is food - all things food. from how he asks to his ungrateful heart to his incessant complaining. he does have some sensory issues that revolve around food and since i gag on even the sight of bananas i can appreciate those issues. BUT there is no acceptance for constant complainig. this morning, by 9 am i had heard him complain about what his father fixed for supper last night, that i needed to go to the store because i had nothing to eat (i had just shopped!), and that he was NOT going to eat the lunch i would probably fix of peanut butter and jelly! after fixing cinnamon rolls for breakfast he threw away the outside of the roll and then asked for something else! umm..no, i don' t think so bud! i head to the shower completely frustrated. i think best in the shower and while in there i decided that maybe he should have cheerio...

one amazingly patient, hardworking hunk of a hubby finised our family room... one amazingly talented princess proudly poses by her gallery art work downtown. a couple of nice days drew the kiddos outside for the first picnic at sycamore hill... the lady bugs continue to drive me absolutely insane...no, that is not beautiful buds on that tree...it is a atrocious amount of BUGS!!!!!

i typically love sunday afternoons. i'm always kinda tired and lazy and just enjoy them. this one was no different. exhausted after a retreat i enjoyed watching a bball game and then the bracket draw with mapboy. i also was enjoying doing my laundry. i actually do like that task - especially with my new washer and dryer. so last night i had put the last load into the dryer and sat down to check my email, facebook, and blogs. the kids were playing computer games in hubby's office. i got up to get them their vitamins and tell them to get ready for bed. now, the office shares a wall with our dryer. i happened to notice something amiss with the brand new dryer. it appeared to not be spinning, yet bleeping that it was drying. and you know, it smelled a little, let's just say, HOT! i hit pause but it kept making this strange sound. so i called to hubby. we turned it off and opened it up. by now, it really SMELLED and things seemed a bit hazy around it. as we star...