This week, so far, we've been to the beach twice, the water park once, and out to eat twice. Igh! I'm worn out! I've been running around doing that, then Trey and I have been going to the chiropractor, which has been helping greatly, but running up quite a bill. I rarely find time to sleep much anymore with all this and work! I thought summer was when you slowed down and took some time off or something!

So Taryn worries me a little, but excites me at the same time. I think that girl is going to be WILD! Today, for instance, we were at the beach, and while TJ was scared to go in past his knees, Taryn was going in all the way to her neck and totally getting taken out by the waves. She'd come back up from out of the water laughing, and when I'd check on her (b/c it was terrifying me!) she'd be all, "I'm okay Mommy!" A little water would splash in TJ's face, and he would cry till he could get to a sand-soaked towel to dry his face off, where he would then cry about the sand in his eyes!

But back to Taryn...so I got Trey a motorcycle, you know. He decided to take the kids for a ride around the neighborhood shortly after we got it. TJ was first. He put some pants and his bicycle helmet on, and ran to the bike. As soon as it was time to get on, he freaked out, screaming that he was scared. At the time, I was standing next to Taryn, who proudly proclaimed, "I'm not scared, Mommy. I wanna ride the motorcycle!" She did, too, like she'd been doing it her whole life. I was worried at first, b/c she was scooted back too far, and could barely reach, much less reach around, Trey. Once he moved her up some, though, she held on alright. He said the whole time she was pointing at things and talking his ear off w/o a fear in the world! Later, I asked her if she wanted a motorcycle when she grows up, and she answered with a resolute "YES!" Now that's my baby girl! Do you think it's too early to go ahead and get her a "Biker Babe" t-shirt? As she grows out of it, it can just become a baby-doll shirt, or whatever it is chicks wear these days.

Everyday she shows how utterly fearless she is. She's also a funny little person, too. The other day we were in the car w/Julia and her kids, and Alison was telling her to say "Holy Cow!" She'd go, "Holy Cow, Mommy, look at that tree!" She kept us laughing. Many days I'll wake up by rolling over to a little girl dressed in a hodge-podge of dress-up clothes, with her normal clothes intermixed, and singing a silly song as she attempts to get to my face to "give you a kiss, Mommy." Her emerging imagination is pretty entertaining, too. The other day she told me all about the ghosts that live in our house (they're nice ghosts, of course). We went down the list of them all, and who they haunt, and she even let me know what sound each one of us makes when we see them! I say, "OHHhhhhhhh!"

Did I happen to mention just how smart she is? TJ caught on much more quickly to the spoken language thing, and seems to be very, very mathematically inclined, which is great. Taryn, however, is constantly amazing me with her artistic abilities. It took TJ till he was four before he even would try to draw a circle, and he just started being able to draw people. Taryn is already drawing people, and she started drawing circles at two! She also started picking out her clothes (which she matches quite well, sometimes better than me!) and dressing herself somewhere around the time she turned two. You can never appreciate enough how great it is to have your child dress herself, especially when you have to dress not only her little brother, but her older one as well! I also find it amazing that she has the memory she does. She still remembers everything she got for her second birthday, and everytime she sees it, she'll go, "I got that for my happy birthday!" She does the same thing for Christmas presents, and gifts in general. She'll tell you, "Mimi gave this to me," and it'll be something she got years ago. I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast this morning (which is pretty sad, b/c I eat the same thing every day!)!

I could go on and on, as I'm sure anyone could about their child. I say that she worries me, b/c I can just see her being a wild-child that has no problem letting her hair down and having fun. I foresee trouble, and I can only hope that she picks the right friends. She excites me, though, b/c I also see her being the life of the party, and standing out in the crowd. I think she'll be a unique person, with a personality all her own. She's social, yet completely able and happy to hang alone, which I think will definitely benefit her. She's already shown that she's fiercely independent, which I'm quite sure will help her and hinder any attempts by me to hold her back! I do love, though, that she's such a loving little girl, and the she's 100% Momma's Girl! She tells me at least 1000 times a day that "I love you so much, Mommy." It rocks, even when it gets on my nerves b/c I'm in the middle of doing something! I am a very, very lucky person! I couldn't be happier that I have the special little girl that I have, scary crazy or not!

How happy was Taryn about the cool make-up and art sets she got yesterday at her birthday party? See for yourself:

She had a princess party, and there was quite a showing. I was actually pretty surprised at the amount of people that came. All the girls came looking like princesses, and we made tiaras and jewelry to go with their beautiful dresses! The boys had pirate stuff to make, although most of them showed very little interest in doing so. TJ, Taryn and I made a pinata...sorta. Later, I'll tell you a story about Friday night that had a large bearing on why we didn't have time to finish it, and it became a table centerpiece instead. It worked, though. They just took it outside and beat it to death on the ground. Either little girls that are three like art a lot, or Taryn somehow made it apparent that she does, b/c she got a lot of art sets (which she is loving) and make-up, which, as you can see, she has put to good use. Overall, it was an awesome party. Oh, and my mom made the cake, which was not only cool looking, but moist and tasty to boot! Even Taryn's much-too-old boyfriend Justin came. I only allow their relationship b/c he seems like a good guy...even though 22 seems a bit old for her. (forgive the poor shape of the pics...apparently someone smudged something all over my lens, and I didn't notice it till it was too late!)















See that gorgeous baby up there somewhere? That's my neice Jadyn with her mommy, my sister Susan, and Uncle Patrick. Oh, and I was busy helping Taryn open presents, so all the pics of those don't exist, b/c I wasn't taking them!

If you're still here, I'll tell you why we didn't finish the pinata. We were busy Friday getting the house cleaned up for the party, and Trey bent down to turn of the shop vac he was using to suck up corner dirt. The next thing I know, he's on the kitchen floor looking like one of those dead people outlines and screaming for me to help him. In the tiny bend he made, he managed to throw his back out entirely. He spent the good part of the day lying on the kitchen floor, until he finally got sick b/c I gave him too many Tylenol, and decided to go to the hospital. We spent the entire night there, and thus, I was not able to finish the pinata as planned. Oh, and he is still pretty bad off, and it sucks, b/c I have learned that although I feel strong, carrying a 200+ lb. guy around is not easy or fun. Poor Trey, though, you can tell he's really frustrated with the whole deal. We're going to hit up a doctor's office early tomorrow morning, and hopefully they will get him on the path to wellness. What sucks even more is that he's on his vacation right now, and he had planned all kinds of projects to finish around the house, and instead he's wasting it sitting around in pain. I will say, though, we're getting the most time spent with him than ever before...although the fact that he's in pain and not able to do much or be touched much makes it not quite the "quality time" I'd hoped it would be!

Oh, and Happy Father's Day to any guy who might happen to read this and have kids!

Have a great day! I'll talk to you later!

I've been trying something new lately, and so far it's working. I bought a bar caddy from a restaurant supply store. Usually, they are used in bars to hold the garnish that goes on/in the drink before it's served...you know, like the cherry, olive, celery, stuff like that. I cut up celery and strawberries, and put them in it along with baby carrots and grapes. I then told the kids that they are welcome to eat as much of the food in the caddy as they like, whenever they want. I also got a water filter thingy that has a little spicket thing on it, so that they can get water whenever they want. It has worked well so far. The kids are eating more healthy snacks and drinking lots of water. The downside is that they are also opening and closing the refrigerator a lot, using a LOT more cups, and spilling a LOT more water. Overall, though, I'm happy with the outcome. Now let's just hope it stays that way!

An experiment that has not gone so well, so far, is my decision to make a pinata instead of buying one for Taryn's birthday party this weekend. I made a castle shape out of poster board. Not bad. Then, today I was going to paper mache it with the kids. Yeah, it was messy and gooey, something I was not looking forward to, but that I thought they'd love. Apparently, not even Taryn, the messiest little girl in the world, wanted to mess with getting goo on her hands! I ended up doing the whole thing myself. So far, it looks alright, but it's not quite dry yet. Tomorrow I have to do the bottom, and once it's dry we can paint it. That seems to be the only part the kids want anything to do with. I guess we'll see how it turns out. I had to put the candy in before I finished putting it together, and I think it might be too heavy to actually hang up...so it might just end up being a center piece for the table!

I had pics of this stuff, but I can't get my computer to download them, so you don't get to see. I know you're very upset. Oh, here, here's a picture of the bar caddy. Now that should make everything better.

So, how has the rise in gas prices effected your life? It has certainly had a large effect in many ways on ours.

Let's see, the main changes would come in the actual purchasing of gas. I have a paper route, and the whole thing is about driving, so of course I have to still keep buying gas. Honestly, the whole round trip is only about 35 to 40 miles, which is less that Trey has to drive round trip to and from work (50 miles), but it's full of stopping, starting, turning, slowing down, speeding up...all the stuff that not only burns gas faster, but wears out your engine and tires quicker. It used to take me $40 to fill up my tank, near the end of last year. Now, it takes $65 to $70 easily. The remedy? I bought Trey a motorcycle, as I mentioned before, and I was driving his car to do the route during the week when the paper is small enough to fit in it (not Sundays, too big). It sucks to drive a stick-shift on a paper route, but I made it work. Of course, now I have to wait a few days, b/c the other day his window, driver door of course, decided to die. Can't do a paper route with the window shut, so I've been back to driving the van. Man, what a difference I've noticed already! It would also be nice if Trey would get his guts about him and actually start driving the damn motorcycle to work. That would help...

Food has also become a problem. It seems as everything at the grocery store has escalated in price. For a while it was just the milk, which was killing me. I had to cut the kids to just one sippy cup a day, whereas before they were having it with every meal. Cole gets more, naturally, since he still needs it the most, but the other two now have to drink a lot of water, which they're kind of getting used to. TJ doesn't mind so much, but Taryn HATES it. I bought a fridge water filter, with a little spicket on it, and that seems to have made it more fun for them. They call it "Fresh, Cold Water" (always), and can get it themselves, and the liberation and control has definitely helped! As a matter of fact, Taryn just brought me a cup, how sweet! Anyway, as far as other foods go, I've really had to cut back on a lot of stuff. The kids love snacks, but they can't have as many as they used to. Oh, and produce! Am I the only one who's noticed that fresh food is harder and harder to afford? I really want to start eating better, but damn! I bought a little bag of grapes the other day, on sale, and it still cost me over $4! Bananas used to be $.48 a pound, now they average over $.65. I'm sad that it's cheaper just to buy a frozen pizza, although not much, b/c even those have gone up!

Have you heard, too, that electricity and water are going up? Well, at least here they are. Yeah, that's what I need. I can barely afford my electricity bills as it is, but definitely raising the prices will help. I am on the verge of telling Trey he can't take two showers a day anymore (he needs them with the stinch that sticks to him from work), and telling the kids that there will be no more sprinkler play.

Also, I've slipped into further depression. I literally feel sick to my stomach on a daily basis as I think about everything going up in price, and our pay going down. You know, both of us work in areas that depend on people spending their extra money. When experts start talking about where to cut costs to save money and make your budget work, they first say "cut out eating out and getting the paper--you can read it online". There go our incomes! I just lost my small paper route, which was bringing in a little under $300/month. Sure, it's not anything major, but it definitely will be missed. I hate driving by gas stations, b/c it makes me feel more dismal. The only thing that brings me a feeling of hope anymore is when I hear these articles and stuff about cars that run on water...yeah, as if I'll be getting one of those anytime soon! Yeah, so this sucks.

I realize it's not all that bad, and it's only going to get worse from here, but man does it feel awful already. So, has the skyrocketing of gas prices effected your life in any ways? How have you dealt with it?