Oh what a week it's been!

It's kinda been a rough week....our poor daycare lady caught the dreaded swine flu so we have not had daycare ALL WEEK! Turns out there is no such thing as a back-up daycare....you just gotta hope you know somebody who is a stay-at-home mom or retired or something like that. Unfortunately for us, we don't know very many of these folks so we had to get creative. Marc took kid duty on Monday and Aunt Katy (cousin Andrew goes to daycare with Jacksen and Kellan) and I split the day on Tuesday and Wednesday. Today the boys got to spend the morning with Great Grandma Sam...they were thrilled! Grandma Sam loves children...and she never tells them no. She is definitely Kellan and Jacksen's kind of gal!

AND, if having no daycare all week wasn't enough, the brakes on my minivan started making a terrible noise last Sunday. My sweet (and very handsome) husband took it apart Sunday evening....and there it still sits in our garage with no rotors (whatever those are), break pads, or tires. Luckily, my favorite twin sister let me borrow her car this week! Never thought I'd say this, but I'm kind of missing my van. I know it isn't cool to drive a van, but they sure are convenient when you have three kids and lots of stuff to haul around!

Anywho, enough about the dreary stuff! We actually did some fun things this week...on Tuesday evening we carved pumpkins.

Our no-mess scarecrow pumpkin

Pumpkin carving with Grandpa McCauley

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to our first real snowfall of the fall! Here is a photo of the view from our front porch:


And tonight, Miss Megan participated in a little show about China during parents' night at PEAK. PEAK is an after-school enrichment program that Megan attends three day a week. It's a wonderful program and she loves it!

Our girl

We are looking forward to a fun-filled Halloween weekend - watch for pictures on Sunday! Oh, and if you have a few minutes, could you please pray for little Stellan McKinney...you can read about him at http://www.mycharmingkids.net/.

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Since I didn't post at all over the weekend, this Not Me! Monday! post is about some of the things I didn't do this weekend. For starters, I did not invite my sisters and all of their children over to our house for dinner Saturday evening. I would never do that to my poor husband - all of those wild children in our house at one time makes him nuts! And, if that wasn't enough, I certainly didn't serve up a turkey dinner...with mashed potatoes out of a BOX. Who would think that was a great idea so close to Thanksgiving?! And, anyway, fake mashed potatoes are gross.

On Sunday morning, when my darling husband was away hunting, I did not take our beautiful healthy children out for donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast! What kind of a mother would do that?!

This afternoon I did not invite my sweet twin and her new puppy over for dinner....mostly so I could her puppy. Sheeesh, like we haven't had enough company lately!

And now I'm off to put my darling children to bed, make Megan's lunch for tomorrow, work out like crazy to make up for the three miniature Almond Joys I didn't snack on this afternoon, and maybe fix my quilt and carpet that my sister's puppy chewed on. If I ever entertain the idea of getting a puppy, please remind me that they are more work than my own children!

Jacksen the Terrible

I'm not sure where our sweet, innocent little Jacksen has gone....If you see him, will you please bring him back? In his place, we now have a demanding, ornery, but still cute little Jacksen.

In the last few weeks, Jacksen Marc (as he likes to be called) has morphed into an almost 3-year-old little turkey (just in time for Thanksgiving!). He insists on only wearing Wrangler jeans and boots,

is climbing on the counter and sneaking cookies out of the cupboard, and sneaks out of bed over and over until he is advised a swat on the bottom is in his near future if he gets out of bed again.

Mr. Jacksen insists on getting himself dressed...and picking out his clothes. AND, any offer of assistance is met with a severe reprimand from the little stinker - it has to be HIS idea...or else! The thing is, he often gets his shirts on backwards...

The worst thing about our little imposter....well, he has taken to screeching "I hate you!" when he doesn't get his way. I have no idea what to do about that except ignore it or put him in his room and make him apologize. I know he doesn't mean it, but it sure makes me sad. Let's just say that being our littlest and being so cute are his saving graces these days!

Hamburger

Kellan brought home a little friend from daycare today....a worm he named "Hamburger". Not sure how he came up with that name, but I thought it was pretty funny! He and Megan found a shoebox and punched some holes in the lid with one of my kitchen knives. NO, I did not know they were doing this until it was too late to do anything about it! Anyway, they filled the box with mud and made a habitat for their little pet. Kellan wanted to keep the shoebox in his room, but I persuaded him that the garage is much better home for a worm home. I hope he's still alive in the morning or I'm gonna have some explaining to do!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I have a little bit of a guilty conscience....but it's not because I fudged a little bit to Kellan. See, he really wanted to go to Megan's soccer game yesterday, but Marc really didn't want to have to entertain him through the whole game so I might've...but not really...told him I had a surprise for him. The thing is, once Marc and Megan were out the door, he expected me to deliver. So then I did not tell him that I had been planning on making some special cookies for him to take to daycare on Monday....and I certainly did not tell him we would make chocolate chip cookies, but conveniently forgot to mention that the cookies were actually called pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. And he wasn't just a little bit disappointed when he figured it out either!

And I did not spend entirely too much time on Facebook yesterday....and maybe did not get a bathroom or two cleaned (or the laundry put away or the floors mopped) because of it. That would be incredibly irresponsible and, Lord knows, I am NEVER irresponsible!

And tonight when the kiddos asked to watch a movie, I did not put in High School Musical 2 because I actually like the music. And we did not watch the Hanna Montana Movie countless times last week for the same reason. I'd like to think I am waaaaay past these teenie bopper movies....I really am!

And, now, I'm not going to tell our kiddos that it's time to go to bed even though they still have five minutes....it's been a long rainy Monday and I've been looking forward to finishing Book 4 of the Yada Yada Prayer Group series!

32 Goals

Kellan ended his Fall 2009 soccer season with a total of 32 goals...in five games! It was fun to see how much these kids improved over the last few weeks. To celebrate our middlest's highly successful soccer season, we went to lunch at Bullman's Pizza today - delicious!

Kellan and Uncle Ryan

Our soccer star

Kellan and his teammates, John and John Paul, playing hard

A little pre-game warm-up

We are very proud of Mr. Kellan - he's becoming quite a little athlete!

Why did I do it?!

So I had this great idea of taking my three beautiful children shopping for Halloween costumers tonight by myself. I have no idea what made me think this would be a great idea since we couldn't even make it through dinner without crying tonight - I mean, the kids were crying. Marc and I just felt like crying.

Anyway, Megan and Kellan argued during th entire drive to Shopko - it seemed like hours, but it was really only 15 or 20 minutes. Once inside the store, the boys suddenly behaved as if they had never left the confines of our house - Jacksen became Houdini and climbed out of the shopping cart while snuggly buckled in and Kellan was running up and down the aisles at what seemed like 100 mph. We finally located the Halloween costumes after almost tipping over a Christmas tree (no kidding, in the middle of October!) when I saw a sign advertising all Halloween costumes were 50% off. I was feeling like the smartest chick in the world for stumbling upon such a great sale totally by accident. But then I looked at the price tags on the costumes. Who in the world would pay $99 for an infant teddy bear costume?! After much debate...and several idle threats of no bedtime snack if the boys did not put the Halloween masks back where they found them...we finally settled on a princess costume for Megan - a bargain at $12.50 - and a wolverine costume for Kellan (only $17).

Next year I think we'll manufacture out own costumes our of tin foil and duct tape. And, by the way, how are old are most kids when they outgrow the dressing up for Halloween thing?

One of my favorite days....

...is the day after Thanksgiving...and it's only 43 days away! You may be wondering what is so special about this day. Well, let me tell you...it is the only day of the year that I get to get out of bed at 4:30 am, skip a shower (an interesting thing to do with naturally curly and totally out of control hair!), buy a delicious vanilla chai tea from Starbucks (skinny, of course!), shop to my heart's content with my most crazy fun little sister, and indulge in a big breakfast late in the morning....all with NO CHILDREN!!! My sweet sister, Katy, and I spend hours on Thanksgiving Day scouring all of the sale ads and planning our shopping route for the next morning. I usually manage to complete 95% of my Christmas shopping on this day and am completely exhausted by the time I go home to my family (usually by 11 am). It's great...and I can hardly wait!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Let's see....what have I not done lately. Now that I think about it, there are lots of things that I...um...didn't do lately. For instance, I didn't get totally mad at my sweet husband for refusing to take the day off last Thursday when Megan was sick. AND I certainly didn't think of a million and one excuses about why it was too late for him to change his mind later that evening when I realized that a day off would actually be a nice thing for me (even if it meant using some precious vacation time!).

It most definitely wasn't me who snuck a cute shirt for Kellan in with my groceries (gotta love WalMart!) so Marc wouldn't get annoyed with me for buying more clothes for our darling children. (Have I mentioned how good Kellan looks in blue?) Ha!

And, when Megan coughed really hard and threw up a little bit in the bathroom wastebasket, I didn't sort of leave the basket by our back door for Marc to notice later...so I wouldn't have to be the one to clean it out and replace the bag. That would be an awful thing to do to somebody I love so much!

And now, I might go munch on the mini cherry pie that I did not buy ...along with a People magazine...when I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some sandwich bags (which I forgot when I went shopping at WalMart this weekend) on my way home from work today. Sheesh...did you forget I'm on a diet?!

Cookies

Good news....Miss Megan is feeling better! In fact, she is back to her happy little self! Kellan and Jacksen both have quite a cough, but no fever....so, I'm not sure if they caught the swine flu or just a cold. Let's hope they caught a very mild version of this flu...and that's all!


We spent a quiet weekend indoors. Helena broke records for cold temperatures over the last couple days so it was just fine to stay home! We watched a lot of movies, took some good naps, and enjoyed some time together. Megan and Kellan actually made it through the weekend with hardly any bickering (very unusual!) so I bought them their favorite holiday sugar cookies when I went grocery shopping yesterday. I feel like I'm cheating when I feed my children any cookies that are not made from scratch, but they just love these things!




Okay, okay...I confess, I kinda like them too!

Swine Flu

The swine flu has come to the McCauley house! I got a call from the nurse at Jim Darcy School Wednesday morning so I had to go pick up our girl. She was absolutely miserable with a fever, sore throat and cough. After a couple days of alternating Motrin and Tylenol, I took her to the doctor this morning. I don't know why I was surprised about the diagnosis of swine flu considering Helena has been experiencing quite an epidemic the last couple weeks....but I was pretty surprised. She seemed to be getting much better this morning, but is back to feeling a little miserable this evening. The worst of it seems to be her sore throat....she is having a hard time eating and sleeping (and, by extension, so are Marc and I!). So, if you have a few minutes, could you please say a little prayer for my sweet girl? And, while you're at it, could you please add a little prayer that the rest of us don't catch this awful virus?

Funnies

Our Kellan has been really funny lately...well, he's always very entertaining, but recently he has been downright hilarious! While I was getting dinner on the table last night, he disappeared into our basement. After a few minutes he came bounding up the stairs dressed in a Halloween costume from a couple years ago.

He stood at the top of the stairs looking around, said "Let's see what this baby can do!" and took off running as fast as he could through our house. Funny!

A bit later, during dinner, he dropped a little applesauce on his shirt. He asked me if it would stain and I told him I didn't think it would. Well then he launched into a full-fledged commercial for Oxi-clean! He explained that I really need to use Oxi-clean because it gets out tough stains if you just rub the fabric a little bit. Very funny coming from a 4-year-old!

Whatever would we do without our little comedian?

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

As for what I have not been doing lately...

Well, I think I may have previously mentioned my many failed attempts at losing weight. This weekend I did not bake the best chicken noodle casserole this side of the Mississippi...and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies...and lasagna loaded with cheese. For pete's sake, who would do that when they have spent the last week pretty much surviving on yogurt and skinny chai teas?! Not me!

This weekend, while cleaning and organizing our master bathroom, I did not hear my two oldest childen screaming like little deranged lunatics while beating the snot out of each other...and decide to just ignore it. Some may consider that lazy parenting...I might consider it more of an opportunity to encourage the art of compromise and negotiation. Well, I mean I would think of it that way if I were ever in that situation...but I wasn't. Not me!

Finally, I did not spend my weekend checking Facebook every 15 minutes to see if I had any new friend requests. Anybody that obsessed with Facebook needs to get a life...and some real friends. Yeah, but I do have friends and a social life...so I don't really care about Facebook...not much...Not me!

And now...I gotta go put my kiddos to bed so I can watch TV...er...work out, I mean...I certainly wouldn't watch TV when I could be getting some much-needed exercise...Not me!

The Weekend

Fall is definitely in the air - it's been chilly and windy this weekend. I don't mind, though. I made chicken noodle casserole for dinner and then the kids and I baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies last night. Here is a link to the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Chip-Pumpkin-Cookies-2/Detail.aspx?strb=1. These might be the best fall-ish cookies ever!


On another note, Kellan played a tough soccer game yesterday. He still managed to score five goals, though. Only a couple weeks of YMCA soccer left...we may take a little sports break over the holidays...unless Megan ends up signing up for basketball. Megan plays soccer this afternoon so I'll have post about that game this evening!


Auntie Ami and Chris joined us for dinner last night and they brought their new puppy, Rusty! He is a red/blue healer/collie cross and he is adorable!

Other than all of that, it's been an unusually quiet weekend. Now that I just said that, I'm sure Kellan will come up with something...um...interesting to entertain himself!