Babies, Dogs and Careful Planning

I told Assman that I really want a dog (When I was younger, my Daddy called me Princess Iwanna - because I always wanted this or I wanted that - some things never change!)  I told him it's really more for the kids (Do you see a guilt trip coming? Do it for them - not me! Every boy needs a dog!).  He told me I'm crazy. 

I told Assman that I want a baby too. He told me that he's now certain that I'm crazy.  He also told me that if I get a dog, I do not, under any circumstances, get a baby. To prove this certain, he promised me that the day we bring home a dog is the day he's making an appointment to take care of that. 

 

Yes, I know, I am a little crazy - but you see, before we were married, we both agreed that we wanted a large family. Back then I was also under the impression that he loved animals.  So, naturally, I assumed we would be living on a small hobby farm with a houseful of babies and a lot of different animals.  Remember what I said a few posts ago about assuming? Pre kids - we thought five sounded like a nice number. Post kids - the reality of life set in and our adorable monsters have made us rethink that number. With all the chaos and stress with both of us working, two was sounding pretty good. But....now that I'm retiring.....

So, hmmm, dog or baby? If I play my cards right and carefully plan this out, I think I can have both.  It should be noted that I suck at playing cards - but I am a very good planner :)

Until next time, kiss your babies and doggies, and live, laugh, love xoxoxo

Cake Class

I’ve been taking a cake decorating class the last four weeks with my BFF Material Girl. There is usually a lot of giggling going on – just like in high school.  I hope the instructor doesn’t think we are laughing at her – we’re mostly making fun of each other’s creations because they hardly ever look anything like they are supposed too. For instance, my shaggy mums have a tendency to look like wet mops.  But nonetheless, its been a lot of fun and I’m super happy she talked me into taking the class (even though it ended up being horrible timing with the move – which Assman has been reminding me about nonstop!)

Over the last four weeks my Kitchen Aide has been used more than it has been in the last six years! I’ve made two cakes, two dozen cupcakes and at least six batches of frosting that literally make your teeth hurt. I need to find a new recipe for frosting because I’m growing to dislike the taste of this one. However, it does not stop me from licking my fingers every time it gets on them.  This reminds me that I still have not made the appointment to have my wisdom teeth pulled. Yup - I know, I’m a chicken shit.  I guess I will just wait until I retire - which, oh by the way, is next week!!! Only three more working days! What was I even talking about? Oh yeah, cake decorating….

This class has turned out to be not as easy as I thought it would be.  Every Wednesday I’m up until at least 11:00 p.m. baking a cake, getting my bag of supplies ready, etc.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t stay up this late in high school trying to finish projects.  And after all my hard work, my final projects still have yet to turn out anything like their inspirations (You're the meaning in my life - You're the inspiration - You bring feeling to my life -You're the inspiration. I like to share the songs that get stuck in my head with you. By the way, who gets your vote  in the battle of Chicago vs. Reo Speedwagon? I say REO all the way!) But hey, I can’t complain much, the adorable monsters are always super excited on Friday when they get to see what I created and they always make me feel like it’s the best thing they have ever seen! And Assman is enjoying the treats as well!

Until next time, spend some quality time giggling (just like Anderson Cooper) with your BFF, and live, laugh, love xoxo

Bring On the Competition

There are no ifs ands or buts about it, our household is a very competitive bunch.  All of us are.  At least I think all of us are - I’m still undecided about Porkchop.  But really, is there any other way to be when playing sports?

Case in point – last night at soccer practice the boys were scrimmaging their fellow teammates. Porkchop and Hambone were on the same team, which by the way was not a very smart decision on my part.  Porkchop is obviously not ready for this, as half of his time was spent shoving the ball under his shirt and bumping into the other kids, or doing somersaults, or tackling his brother or saying I don’t like this game and running off the field. I swear not five minutes would go by where I didn’t have to mouth “put that down” or “listen to your coach”.  I’m sure I looked like a crazy lady with all of my finger pointing and hand motioning and what not.  Anyway, back to my point. Because they were practicing with no net, the sidelines consisted of four cones. One outlining each far corner and two outlining the goal box. 

The other team started the play and one of the kids kicked the ball in between the far outside cone and the inner goal cone (I’m hoping you can picture this in your head because I have a hard time explaining things sometimes).  Hambone instantly yelled “That doesn’t count – you didn’t kick it in the right spot.” He was absolutely right.  I’m not sure if the coach just let it slide or if he wasn’t paying attention – but that did not sit well with Hambone. He’s now quite upset and yelling “That’s not fair”. He’s at this age where everything, and I mean everything is not fair.  How do you teach a five year old that sometimes, life is just not fair?  But, back to my point (again).  So, on the next play Hambone immediately steals the ball, takes it all the way down the field and instead of kicking it in the goal box, kicks it in between the same set of cones the other kid did.  He turns to the kid and in a very snotty and matter of fact tone yells “There, how do you like that?”

I’m sure it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I couldn’t help but to smile and snicker a little.  That’s my boy!  He definitely takes after me – such a little brat!

Until next time, enjoy some competition and live, laugh, love xoxo

I Will Not Assume

Over the weekend, Assman thought we would be able to paint the bedrooms, hallway, living room and lay the floor as long as the kids were not around. Luckily, thanks to their Grandmas and Papa and Tammy, the adorable monsters split up over the weekend.  We were pretty much kid free all weekend and ready to rock and roll. 

In the end, Assman was overly ambitious.  He was able to paint our room, the hallway and the boys room.  As far as the flooring, well, apparently that wasn't as easy as he thought it would be, because he was only able to get the boys room and most of the hallway done.  But he did a good job and it looks a ton better than the oringal orange floors! I'm hoping to get the before pictures up very soon.

Here is a small list of what I now know what not to do:

1) DO NOT have your 4 and 5 year old any where near any type of project you are doing.  Not even simple ones like laying contact paper. I take that back - laying contact paper is NOT simple - however having your kids contastly interrupt you makes that job even less tolerable.  

2) DO NOT buy contact paper.  I should have used that other stuff that just lays down, but no, Assman doesn't like that becuase it sometimes bunches up.  If he wasn't working his ass off laying the floor I would make him lay the stupid contact paper too!

3) DO NOT assume you have enough paint left over from the last room you painted. At the house we were renting one of the bedrooms was pink.  Obviously, my boys did not want a pink room so I found an oops can of blue paint at Lowes.  We had about half a can of paint left over and I assumed (Assman always tells me never to assume anything...it only makes an ASS out of U and ME) since the boys new room is about half the size of the old room that we would have enough.  WRONG.  We had one wall left that had already been cut in.  So I ran out to Lowes with my paint can to see if they could match the color.  The original can was flat paint and the saleswomen suggeseted that becuase its a kids room I shoud use satin.  So, I get home and Assman puts it up on the wall (first he gave me an earful about how I need to listen to  him and not the salespeople because now the diference in texture is not going to match up). He was right. Or maybe the new color was just a tad darker,either way there was a very noticable difference.  It was my mistake so I had to go back and do the trim. Which by the way, I think I have only done one other time in my life, so it took me about an hour and half to do just that.  At least now I feel confident enough to tackle the living room.  That should only take me about three hours!

We did manage to enjoy some awesome greek food at the greekfest (both days!) which was conveniently going on at the end of our street. Mmmm opa and gyros - delicious!!

Until next time, don't assume anything and live, laugh, love xoxo

Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew

Have you ever felt like your life is spinning around like a toy top? It just keeps going around and around and around and you wonder when is it going to just slow down? 

On Monday, we completed Step 3 of Special Agent Nicole’s Three Special Steps! The closing went smooth and we received our keys. We are not the type of people to mess around so after we had our celebratory lunch at our new local pub we loaded up a trailer and started the moving process.

Now, since we have our lease until December, our original plan was to just take our time and do things slowly.  Then we thought, hey I’m retiring, we don’t need two house payments - so our landlord agreed to work with us and is now planning on putting the house on the market next week. This means we have to make it look presentable.  Right now it looks as though a tornado has blasted through it.

The new house has the original 1953 hardwood floors in the bedrooms and living room.  While they are in decent condition, they are that orangey color, which I do not like.  We thought about re-finishing them, but for what it would cost and the mess and the time involved in the process, we decided to just put laminate over them.  

What’s on our hit parade you ask? Over the next three days, we have to: pick out flooring, pick out paint for our bedroom, paint the rooms and then lay the floor. Just for shits and giggles, lets throw in the boys soccer practice last night and my cake decorating class tonight. Will it get done you ask? That’s a good question!  What I do know is that Assman feels as though he is going to stroke out (this is what keeps coming out of his mouth every 15 minutes)and he is super crabby. Yay for me!

Until next time, don’t bite off more than you can chew and live, laugh, love - xoxox

This Old "itty bitty" House

Steps 1-2 of Special Agent Nicole's 3 Special Steps have been executed.  The closing on our new (it’s actually old) home is scheduled for August 15^th.  We are so excited and such dorks that we keep driving by it at least a couple times a week! 

I've been tossing around the idea of adding a tab to my blog called “This Old itty bitty House”.  Because of the size and condition of the house, our family will be experiencing some major adjustments so I was thinking I would chronicle how we adjust to downsizing from a 1,900 square foot house to a 1,000 square foot home, as well as our attempts of renovating the never updated 1953 bungalow on a shoe-string budget.   It will mostly be for us to look back on and think how in the heck did we get through that - but I'm sure I will be able to provide a few "what not to do" or other funny stories to all six of my followers!

Assman is already very excited about the purging that goes along with downsizing.  I will have to let go of some of my “stuff” and the kids will have to sell/donate some of their space hogging toys (like their huge plastic kitchen and train table that has been sitting in the basement untouched for several months collecting dust). I find it absolutely ridiculous that they have managed to acquire a toy collection of what I’m sure has cost us and family/friends thousands of dollars over the last five years, only to let it sit unused and untouched the majority of the time.  They are not little Andys (from Toy Story) by any means – they do not seem to have any attachment to toys.  Sure, they have a few favorites, which we will of course keep, but for the most part my adorable monsters just don’t play with their toys.  What do they do you ask?  Wrestle, throw pillows at each other, have shouting matches, chase each other, hit each other with small souvenir ballpark bats, you know boy things.

My head is telling me that I’m doing things backwards, like becoming a stay at home mom when my oldest is five, instead of just doing it from the start or downsizing houses.  But, my heart tells me I’m doing the right thing now.  When I had hambone I chose to continue working because I was making decent money and I wanted that nice brand new house and a nice brand new car and to be able to buy the boys cool toys. But as I go through our journey with Assman and our boys, I realize that none of that matters to any of us.  They don’t want or need all that – all they want is our time, attention and love.  They would much rather have a huge bucket filled with water and a plastic pail than that $50 buzz light-year toy that talks and makes annoying noises.  They would much rather have our smaller house with a bigger yard than the bigger house with the tiny yard. And they really could care less what kind of car they are driving in (although Porkchop really wants a jeep and a driving camper!) They want to go camping and go for bike rides and play at the park - all things that don’t require lots of money. I know they are young still and when they get older the things they want may cost more, but for now I’m going to embrace and encourage their non-materialistic mode of life. Right now my boys are all about living, laughing and loving and that’s what life is all about.

Until next time, listen to your heart and live, laugh, love xoxo