Spelling and Typos

Whomever points out the most spelling and grammer mistakes wins!!

Ready.
Set.
Go!

I have no prizes. BUT the email post worked and that's all that matters to me.

Here, hear!

Can you here me now??

This is a test. A test of the emergency blogger system. This is only a test.

Okay. So here's the deal. I am emailing a blog post from my phone. I feel so ... so... so young, so hip, so now! Wait, kids don't say 'hip' anymore do they?

Anyway, I am testing this out to see if it works. My laptop is without internet access at the moment. Long story. A possible future blog. But for now I need to test drive this baby to see if it's gonna work.

I think I may even try to attach a photo. Don't fall out of your seats okay.

I'm not sure if any of this is going to work, but if it does you can be sure of one thing: I'm going to have some might defined thumb muscles. Phew!

Traumatized

This is Camryn after her bath tonight. Yes, BATH! Camryn can bathe again. Woo-hoo!! Notice her new 'boot'? Guess what? It comes off. So she can take a bath. The girl is complete once again. And no longer has an odor about her.

Just look at that happy fish in the water. Notice that skinny little cast-less leg of hers. Doesn't she look content?! Thanks to PopPop for leaving his shaving cream, she had a blast playing with it in Ben's tub. (Aren't two year old supposed to be chubby? My word she's a scrawny little thing!! Doesn't her mother feed her?)

This was my content little angel yesterday morning. She was anything but content. Just look at her face!

Cam broke her leg on October 13th. She has been in a full leg cast ever since. Her knee has been stationary for three weeks. Yesterday we went to have her leg x-rayed again. Before they did that they removed her cast (see it there on the left). As soon as that cast was peeled off she started screaming. It was horrible. She screamed for the remainder of the hour we were there.
The sudden movement of her knee was painful. Combine that with her fear that it was going to hurt like it did 3 weeks ago and you have one pitiful baby girl. It was heartbreaking.

She screamed "Mommy, me go home! ME GO HOME!!" over and over again. And when she wasn't screaming that she was screaming "Me want Dr. Dave, Me want Dr. Dave!" Dave is our chiropractor ... and apparently Camryn's choice health care provider. Only once everything was over and she was fitted into her new boot did she calm down. This new boot allows her to use her knee while still protecting her tibia. She was hesitant to walk on it yesterday but was up and running today.

This is my baby girl the day she got her full cast 3 weeks ago. That was another traumatic day. Makes me sad to even look at her. But she has been such a great sport through all of this. And like the saying goes "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger" ... she's bound to be one tough little cookie.

Halloween 2010

What a strange holiday Halloween is. Getting dressed up in weird costumes and going door to door asking for candy from strangers. Kinda odd. But it is so much fun how could you not love it? People handing out chocolate just makes this world a better place.

My sweet Kitty Cat with a broken leg.

Spiderella. Perfect for my lover of all living things, including those that creep, crawl, slither, jump and fly. She is my most difficult child, but she is also the one who melts my heart with her sweet comments. After returning home from gathering candy from the neighbors she said to me: "Mom, thanks for doing my make-up. I know you were really busy, thank you." She's the only one that ever says Thank You to me and it means a heck of a lot.

Here are the crazies at a neighbors house. Man, they are getting big. So big in fact that I have given up any hopes of cute Halloween themes with them. I had good ones this year too! The Beatles (how is that NOT cool?), the seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall ... all you got to do is call and I'll ... sorry, James Taylor moment). What was I saying ... oh yeah, cute themes. Anyway, I gave up on them. My kids have opinions. And likes and dislikes. And their own ideas. I don't know why I allow them to, but they do. So I gave up on cute Halloween themes and let them 'be what they wanted to be' and buy costumes. But don't worry I haven't completely given in, their coordinating Christmas outfits should be enough to get my by until Easter.

Day Trip

Jon's parents are in town and our kids only had two days of school this week so we took the entire crew up to Blowing Rock for the day. We met Kristine, Chris and my adorable nephew and niece there.

The leaves are still changing here in Charlotte but we just missed peak up in the mountains. The tornadoes that ripped through the night before may have helped that process along a little, but the view was still beautiful.

The kids climbed around the rocks and enjoyed the fresh mountain air. Like Ben's tattoo? That's from his dentist visit on Wednesday. He has no cavities so the least I could do was let him brand himself.

The monkeys. Camryn is getting along just great with that cast of hers. She has started walking and running. She's quite a trooper!

There is the actual Blowing Rock. From here we went to lunch, caught some lake trout, visited Mast General Store, and then enjoyed ice cream in historic Blowing Rock before heading back to the Queen City. What a nice day! I love when my kids are out of school!!

Timing

Timing is everything, so the saying goes. And it's not just essential for comics and Olympic athletes. Timing has the ability to make or break almost any situation.

Camryn breaking her leg the night before we are set to leave for my brother Matt's wedding was bad timing. The off chance that my mom, Cory, and his girlfriend Stephanie, were here at that exact moment was good timing.

Getting to Cincinnati around noon the day before the wedding was good timing.

Camryn sleeping through all the wedding pictures was bad timing.

Camryn napping just before the wedding so that she was in good spirits and cooperative while being pushed down the aisle by Kate was good timing.

Having my desktop crash JUST after I transferred all the wedding pictures was bad timing. Really bad timing.

So for now while I mourn the temporary loss of the most adorable pictures of my children ever you will have to put up with some random recent pictures from my laptop.




Will and I snuck in a game of Mouse Trap one afternoon before picking up the big kids while Cam napped. Good timing.

And if you think he's cute in this picture just wait until you see him in those wedding pictures. He was working that camera in a serious GQ way.

This has nothing to do with timing. This is just Kate's idea of the ultimate coordinating outfit for school.

Planting fall flowers in 80 degree heat just before the temps dropped was pretty good timing. Not to mention lots of fun for me and the girls.

Notice the lack of cast on Camryn. This was before the bad timing of breaking her leg.

Sacrafices

Our kids attend Charlotte Latin School. And because of this people assume we 'have money'. (What ever that term means: 'have money' ... but that's for another day.) It really is a pretty safe assumption. Private school is expensive. Latin ranks right up there as one of the most expensive schools in Charlotte. But us? We? We don't 'have money'. Sometimes Jon and I think we must be crazy to spend the money we do to have our kids learn essentially the same things they would in a FREE public school. I'm not going to defend our reasons today. Maybe someday, but not today. Today I'm going to tell you about how 'having money' to send your child (or children, like FOUR children) to private school and 'having money' are two different things. Some people have both. Good for them! We are not those people. We don't 'have money'. The reason we don't 'have money' is because we DO send our kids to private school.

For example. There is no picture with this post. My Nikon is still not working. It's been over a year now and I'm just beyond frustrated and sad about it. So why not just run out and get that D90 you ask? Because we send our kids to Latin. And we must pay for them to go there.

All of my photos are now (and have been for a long time) shot on a point and shoot Cannon that was hand-me-downed (you know what I mean) from Jon's brother, after my Cannon's screen died. If we didn't send our kids to Latin I would have run right out after my screen died and replace my Cannon. Heck I'd have a new Cannon AND a new Nikon. And a BMW M5 for that matter. (.... mmm me love me a M5...)
Oh, sorry, got distracted there for a minute ... ANYWAY.

I haven't had my hair professionally cut since last fall. Colored. HA! I wish. No more $200 dollar salon sessions for me. I'm shopping target with a coupon to 'wash this grey right out of my hair'.

Even as I type on my laptop, that is SIX YEARS OLD, I am reminded of what we as parents must give up in order to send our kids to private school. This laptop WAS being held together with duct tape, but now is in two pieces, so really it's become a desk top. Screen propped up against the wall while I type on the really weird keyboard. It's great fun.

My running shoes have over 600 miles on them. (You are supposed to replace them every 300 or so.)

I haven't had a manicure or pedicure in way too long.

Shoe shopping went out when with the inflated real estate prices.

I am the nanny, the cook, the maid, the taxi, the tutor, the landscaper, the laundress, the dog walker, the bedtime story reader, the bill payer, the floor washer, the boo-boo kisser, the girlfriend and the wife.

So the next time you see me in my tattered running shoes, with my drugstore dyed hair, chipped nails and food all over the shirt that reads "Because my kids go to Latin" ... you'll know what it means.

But you know what? I wouldn't change a single thing. And that means a lot from someone who doesn't really agree with traditional education (which Latin is).

And I don't write this for sympathy or sainthood. It's merely the truth. So when my kids ask me "Why can't I have a ds?" I have no problem saying "Because you go to Latin that's why."