30 March 2007

Long time no updates...

It's harder than I thought it would be to keep this deal updated!

Both the kids are recovering form various illnesses - Maddie has strep throat, and Caleb has had an ear infection, and a very fancy sounding virus (I can't spell or say the name) in the past week... The good news is that they are both on the mend! It's very unusual for so much illness to be happening at our house. We're always dealing with Caleb's ears, but that is usually about it (knock on wood).

Beyond all that, not much news. We have once again had an uneventful week. Lots of miscellaneous things going on, but nothing very noteworthy. Yesterday Mike cut down the remainder of the tree that fell on our house in February, and he's been doing some yardwork since the weather has been so nice. I have been getting ready for my Mom and Dad to come for Easter, and Mom will stay for all of next week while the kids' daycare is closed - thank you Mom! Maddie's very excited to wear her fancy Easter dress. She has been badgering me lately for a pet - we may get her a fish soon. That's about as pet friendly as our house will get.

Hopefully soon I will have something more exciting to write about!

24 March 2007

Good husband, good kids, good weather, good everything!

Hello to all my friends and family! We are having a fine weekend. The children let us sleep in a little bit (8 am), and were relatively good all day. We took them bowling (Maddie beat me) and met Mike's brother for the afternoon. After we came home, we were able to play outside - the weather was supposed to be rainy all day, but it was HOT and sunny! Shorts weather. Tomorrow we are attending a surprise birthday party for Mike's grandma, so Maddie and Caleb will get to see the whole family, which is great.

Good news! Maddie is "officially" accepted into Seton for kindergarten next fall. They had so many kids apply that they had to tell some no, and not all of them were able to get into the full-day program. I'm happy to report that she is in the full day class!

Other news - I am jealous of my brother Joe, because he is off to England today for his work. (For those of you who don't know, he has a fancy job at P&G). Anyway, we have not been back to England since we moved home almost 5 years ago, so I am envious that he gets to go there! We miss it. But maybe someday we'll move back, and we'll definitely go back to visit when the kids are a bit older.

Mike is happy because he is doing well in the basketball pool. I was out a long time ago.

And that pretty much wraps up our news of late. If you have not been checking care pages, please say some extra prayers for Hannah (see previous posts if you don't know what I'm talking about). As of Friday she was back in the ICU, and this is not good. No news since then, and I am hoping that the old adage of "no news is good news" holds true. Please pray for her.

21 March 2007

No focus....

It's a BEAUTIFUL day!

All the focus and efficiency I had this morning are now gone for the day. I made the mistake of going outside at lunchtime, and it is 70 degrees and sunny! Not good for a girl needing to go back to her windowless office for the afternoon. But I got smart, and requested Friday off, as I have a few days to use up before my work anniversary and my vacation re-sets. Now I am waiting for a conference call to start - it will no doubt be someone reading a power point presentation verbatim. Very engaging. But someone, somewhere, has decided that this is a good method of training new programs, so I get to listen.

I am happy today because I got a new lip gloss / chapstick that is very nice. I ran out of my old favorite one, so had to get a new one. And I am happy to report that I like it better - it's minty! (It does not take a lot to make my day.) Also, this morning I was able to wrap up a number of personal and work things that have been lingering and waiting for me to finish them. So, all in all, it's a good day. We should have some time to play outside tonight with the kids, and I know they will have been out all day at Rachel's enjoying the weather, and playing with all the other kids.

Life is good.

20 March 2007

Typical days...

As usual, not much is going on at our house, so I thought I'd entertain you all with an agenda of our day so far (this is actually a true timeline for today - none of this is exaggerated, but typical of most weekdays in our house):
05:45 First alarm goes off, I immediately silence it
06:00 Second alarm goes off
06:24 Finally drag myself out of bed, still very dark outside
06:25 Shower
06:30 Put Caleb in corner for not listening and continuing the play with my eyeglasses despite being told repeatedly to put them down
06:32 Get Caleb out of corner, go and get clothes for both kids
06:34 Come back into room to find Caleb now playing with Mike's eyeglasses, put back in corner
06:36 Get Caleb out of corner (again)
06:37 Get dressed (me)
06:41 Attempt to explain to Maddie that now is not the time for playing with her dolls; she insists that she must feed them breakfast before she can get dressed / brush her teeth
06:44 Try to dress Caleb, but we are out of diapers
06:45 Send Maddie downstairs to get last diaper in house out of diaper bag
06:46 Maddie comes back to say there are no diapers in diaper bag. Find one under bathroom sink.
06:47 Caleb is dressed
06:51 Maddie finally finishes dressing herself and brushing teeth (she has been awake since 6)
06:52 Brush both kids' hair
06:55 Head downstairs, give Caleb antibiotic
06:57 Realize have not brushed own hair. Bizarrely, brush is downstairs - no idea how it got there
06:58 Get kids shoes / coats on
07:00 Kids in car, buckled up
07:01 Realize forgot Caleb's cold medicine, run back inside to grab it
07:02 Realize forgot my lunch, run back inside to grab it. Forgot I ate it for dinner yesterday.
07:03 On the road. Try to find requested Veggie Tales Boogieman song
07:06 Have in-depth scientific discussion with Maddie about why the sun shines and what an "atom-smashing machine" is (courtesy of a "They Might Be Giants" song) .
07:13 Drop kids off at Rachel's
07:41 Arrive at work, make coffee
07:45 Work (very peaceful and quiet here) until 12:30
12:30 Lunchtime to run errands, but I forget about the diapers until I am back at work
13:30 Back from lunch, still working (it's 3:26 now). Take break to update blog.

So that's our day so far..... You get the picture! Mike fits in there too, but I updated you from my own perspective. Everything with us is good. Kids are happy, Mike and I are doing well. The weather here is getting better, it was sunny and semi-warm at lunch, very springlike!

More from us later!

16 March 2007

Out of the mouths....

Funny story - a few days ago we were driving in the car and out of the blue Maddie says to me: "Mommy, what's a masturbater?" I, of course, very nearly crashed the car with shock and alarm. After making her repeat herself a few times, I established that was indeed the word she was trying to say. So, naturally, I asked her where she had heard such a thing. She said it was from one of the Veggie Tales songs. Now, for those of you not in the know, Veggie Tales is Christan based kids movies and TV shows - not a likely candidate to teach my daughter such a word. So we listened to the song she was talking about, and it turns out they were saying "mashed potaters." (FYI, for you parents out there, it's in the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything song.) Nice. So I dodget a bullet there - lucky I figured it out before I had to come up some explanation for the word she thought she heard.

Other news at our house - nothing! Caleb has an ear infection. One of his tubes is working it's way out, so I'm guessing we'll be getting the third set before long. Big weekend plans for us are relaxing and doing some grocery shopping. We'll meet some friends for an early kid-friendly dinner tomorrow, and that'll be about it.

So happy it's Friday!

15 March 2007

Happy Birthday to Mike!

It's Mike's birthday today! We celebrated it last weekend, since weeknights are crazy for us. Good thing too, because today he is feeling sick with the stomach bug the kids have had in the past few days..... Our little petri dish Caleb is usually the source of most of the aliments in our house, but this one seems to have originated with Madeline.

So, with that said, you can guess that not much has been happening at our house this week. Kids not feeling good, work as usual, and that's pretty much it. Last night was girls' night at my friend Carrie's, and I'm happy because I figured out how to make baked low-fat Jalapeno poppers that are comparable to the full-fat ones! (It's the little things...)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!

12 March 2007

Our government at work....

Dragging myself out of bed this morning was no easy feat... I blame Congress and their bright idea to move daylight savings up 3 weeks. I was doing so well in the mornings last week, as it was light out when I have to wake up. Today, it was pitch black. Even Maddie commented on it, asking me why we were leaving in the middle of the night.

We had a very uneventful weekend.... Saturday we went to a kindergarten assessment for Maddie. She got to play and meet the teachers, and their purpose was apparently to assess the incoming group of kids to structure their plans for the fall. The rest of the weekend was mainly errands and catching up on some lingering issues. Our weather was nice - it's finally getting warmer, and the kids played outside for awhile yesterday. Mike was able to get up on the roof and inspect the damage from the tree that fell on it during our ice storm a few weeks ago. The good news is that it only took off a couple of shingles, so he repaired it himself. Yesterday we celebrated Mike's birthday since we'll be busy this week on the actual day. Looking forward to my girls' night on Wednesday...

Oh, a quick FYI - we are in the process of eliminating our home phone. I'm having the number ported to my cell phone. So right now, the home phone # does not work. In a couple of days it will be back on, but will ring to my cell phone, at which time my cell number will be no more!

Now all of you who are wanting regular updates on our news see why I'm not always the best at emailing - we are boring! But no news is good news, and I like it that way.

08 March 2007

Boring is good...

Well here I am, as promised, updating any of you who are interested with our news. Sadly, I do not have much to say. We have been busy with plain old life this week. Some of the highlights of our week include Maddie's cheerleading class tonight where I got to listen to all the crazy mothers criticize their daughters cartwheels, etc (mind you, these are 4 year olds - whatever happened to just having fun?), watching The Office later (if it's not a repeat), and exciting plans to go to the fish fry at church tomorrow night. As you can see, we lead very exciting lives around here! The title of my post rings true - boring is good. This week at work has been very crazy. Unfortunately, I had to fire someone on Monday. This is the least fun part of my job. Anyway, the resulting mess that has had to be cleaned up has taken up most of my time this week. So the routine of my evenings is much welcomed! The good news about the situation at work is that it will give me a chance to re-structure my team a little bit! The bad news is that I have someone getting ready to go on maternity leave next month, so my work life will likely remain very hectic through August.... Beyond all that, we are looking forward to celebrating Mike's birthday next week (Maddie more than anyone - she measures the year in who's birthday comes next), and looking forward to a nice, calm, relaxing weekend. Signing off from Chez Haynes for now - Jeopardy calls!

Prayers Needed!

All, as I think you all know, some of our friends children have been very sick, both with cancer. Hannah needs your prayers today as she is undergoing a sinus surgery and additional testing. In addition, her parents are searching for a bone marrow donor for her upcoming bone marrow transplant. Corey is doing much better, but still needs prayers as well.

For updates on both of them you can go to: www.carepages.com
Hannah's page name is: hlrumping
Corey's page name is: coreynickell

Thanks for your prayers and wishes for these families - I have passed them along!

05 March 2007

Getting on the Technology Wave.....

I made a big decision today - to join the Internet revolution (a bit late, admittedly) and use some technology to keep all of you (good friends and family) updated on our family happenings, as well as whatever I might feel like putting on here. I'm new to the blogging world, but it seems to me that this will be a handy tool for letting everyone check out our news when it is convenient for you! Plus, I am a habitual slacker at regular emailing (as many of you already know), so I figure this will get me at least partially off the hook for not doing a good job of keeping you all updated with news of the kids, etc....

So! Our recent news - we just got back from a short trip to Texas last week where we visited my Mom and Dad. Maddie was very excited to ride on the airplane, and both kids were good on the entire trip. Caleb didn't do much screaming on the plane, so that was good. The weather was hot (in the 90's - very nice), and we were able to go to the beach and/or pool every day. Mike and I went to Mexico twice, once with my mom to shop and once with my dad to see his work. I've never been to that part of the country before, so really enjoyed seeing how different it is as well as seeing where Mom and Dad live. We had a great time - looking forward to heading back for a week at South Padre Island this fall.

Beyond that, not much is going on in the Haynes household lately. We registered Maddie for kindergarten recently, she'll be going to our church school. She's already very excited about it, as am I since they have a great full-day kindergarten program. Caleb is starting to talk more, and his personality is really developing. He's a funny little guy - more laid back than Maddie is, but still very stubborn and headstrong. We have our hands full with the two of them.

That's about it for today. I will plan to update this thing regularly with our news and views and whatever else I feel like sharing.