Trevor's Favorite Things

Color: Red (I think he is trying to get on Grandma Red's good side)

Movie: The Spiderwick Chronicles (why did he have to pick one with a word I'm not sure I can spell?)

Dinner: White Noodles (noodles with Alfredo sauce)

Lunch: Chips, PB&J, and applesauce (no lie he has had this in his lunch almost everyday this year)

Breakfast: Toaster Strudels (we are having these today, before that it has been almost a year)

Day of the Week: Wednesday (he gets out of school early)

Treat: Chips & Granola bars (I am glad about the granola bars because we got some on such a good deal at Albertson's that we bought about 60 boxes!)

Book: Magic Tree House books (he reads about 5 of them at a time, chapter one in each book, then chapter 2 in each book and so on)

Activity: Don't Eat Pete (no, not uncle Pete, it is a pretty fun game where you eat m&m's until you get to the spot designated as "Pete" by the rest of the crowd, who then yells out "don't eat Pete!")

TV Show: Krypto the Super dog (I tried to talk him out of saying this one because he has only seen it once on the computer, but he would not budge)

Web Address: Cartoon Network

Favorite Saturday Activity: Nintendo (I was so hoping it would be riding his bike, or playing outside, oh well)

Thing about School: Recess, reading, and writing, oh yeah and math (thats my boy!)

What a Day

Well, I have been pretty busy this last week. Everyone in my family has been sick. It started with Ashton last week, then Trevor got it, then Bryan, myself, Nathan and last but not least Kaylee. Ashton is almost over it, and the rest of us suffer mostly at night and early morning. Things are starting to get back to normal, but we did have an interesting night and day today. Kaylee was up ALL night complaining that her tooth hurt. So first thing this morning I took her in to the dentist. It turns out that she does have a tooth that needs to be pulled out, however, that is not the tooth that was causing her trouble. The trouble tooth is her 6 year old molars that are just coming in. The dentist said to give her Tylenol and ibuprofen, and Benadryl to sleep if needed. On the way home she started complaining that her ear hurt so when we got home I went to give her some ibuprofen, only to find that our new bottle of it was missing. I asked Nathan if he had seen it and he informed me that it was all gone. This was not good news because Nathan has a history of drinking entire bottles of medicine (last time it cost us $400 for the ER to call poison control and tell us he was OK) After he showed me the empty bottle and admitted to drinking the whole thing 2-3 days ago, I wised up and called poison control myself (OK, OK, first I called Peter and he told me to call poison control) Luckily Nathan is a very ...solid kid weighing in at almost 40 lbs so they told me that he would have had to drink 1 and 1/2 bottles before it would cause him trouble. (See what you have to look forward to Kim...not to say that you have a .....solid kid or anything) What a relief. The only problem now was that I had to take 4 sick kids with me to the store to buy more medicine. Oh boy, what a day!

Caught on Tape!!

We were just messing around watching the videos of Barlow and Bryan playing tether ball and we decided to play it backwards and low and behold, we found something amazing. No wonder Barlow keeps winning!

Tetherball Anyone?

For Christmas this year one of our presents was a tether ball poll. Which Bryan promptly installed right in the middle of our back yard. So far Barlow and I are the champions. I say this because we are both undefeated (of course we have not played against each other yet) Barlow has only played Bryan and I have only played my kids, but I thoroughly beat all of them! It has been a lot of fun to play and to watch Barlow and Bryan play, and I didn't think it was fair that Andrea and I should be the only ones to enjoy watching, so I thought I would share! Hope you enjoy as much as we do!

You might think that they are wearing the gloves because it is still kind of cold and it hurts to hit the cold ball, but they actually really like they way the gloves look and it makes them feel like real tether ball players!

The Car Experience

So, where to start. We have been the proud owners of a Kia Sephia for nearly 9 years now, but we knew the ride had to end and last Friday it did. When Bryan got dropped off at the Walmart parking lot (which is where his carpool meets) the clutch in the car was not working at all. Now this was not a major fix, but we figured it probably totaled the car (it was only worth a couple hundred dollars) We had planned to save up this year and buy a new car, but had not been able to start saving yet and we were reluctant to finance another car so Bryan decided to try out his handyman skills and fix the car himself. So after buying the part he needed we spent his next day off at Walmart's parking lot trying to fix the car. Here is what Bryan did:

Here is what the kids did (Trevor was at school already): After a couple of hours and 3 trips back to the house (once because we left the car keys at home, once to take Kaylee to school, and once again because Bryan locked the keys in the car and we had to go get the other set) Bryan realized that without proper air tools he could not even access the part that needed replaced so we called around to see how much it would be to tow the car then have it fixed. We found someone that would fix it for $30 and our friend was going to help us tow it there.

In the middle of the tow, this happened:

If you can't tell the tow rope is tied together. That is because it broke in the middle of the trip. We did not pull the car with that rope the rest of the way though because our friend was able to force the car into gear and drove it the rest of the way. We were feeling great about fixing the car until the mechanic called and told us that the part Bryan had ordered was not the right part and that the actual part we needed would be $100. Well that did it. We told him not to worry about fixing it, we would sell it to the junk yard for $200 and go buy a new car. So that is what we did today and here it is:

By the way if it looks familiar there are a couple of reasons 1) it is another Kia....yes that means we have now bought 3 Kias what can we say they are a great car and you can't beat the price and 2)it is the exact same Make Model and Year that Barlow and Andrea just bought! (but a different color)

Slight Success......Maybe

Well, thank you to everyone who thought I could lose as much weight as last time.....that being said I must say you were wrong. I did not even come close. I got up this morning and weighed myself and the scale said that I had gained 0.2 pounds, I tried again and it said I had lost 1.8 pounds, then again at 1.8 pounds, then it said I weighed the exact same as last week, then the exact same again, then it weighed me at losing 1.2 pounds, to be sure I weighed myself another 6-7 times and it came out at a loss of 1.2 pounds so that is what we are going with. I think today I am going to buy a new scale. I think now I will keep it to monthly updates, thanks for all your support!

Success!!

Well today was my weigh in day and I am happy to report that the voting was mostly incorrect. I was able to lose 4.6 pounds this week!! I was so thrilled. It was really hard and I was sore for the first 5 days, but I am not sore any more and it is getting easier to resist the fatty foods. The things that have saved me were: Splenda (like sugar free Italian sodas with no cream), Yogart and Fruit smoothies, and turkey sausage. These things calmed my cravings a bit. I found it really helpful just leave the house because I am to darn cheap to buy something while I am out. I also tried to follow the same rules that applied to my kids, like when I would say no no only one candy after lunch. Normally, I would give them one, then after they left the room I would have a few more. I dont know why we have such a double standard, but no more. Probably the biggest thing for me was to just stop eating when I was full. I know that sounds like a ...duh...statement, but I really like food, so if there was a dish that I really liked I would be tempted to have seconds, even if I was full, so I simply didn't do that this week. Thanks for your support it made all the difference in the world to know that after a week I had to let everyone know how I did! I will let you know next week how it goes also.