the one about my FREAKING AWESOME HUSBAND!!!

You can say what you want about my Bretty, but let me just tell you.... HE IS AWESOME! I am not going to get all sappy and tell you how much I love him, what a great dad he is, etc. etc. etc. Broken record. But I AM going to brag on him about his work stuff.

Brett works for Airgas. They sell any kind of gasses, welding supplies and safety supplies that you can ever dream of. He is an amazing salesman. Always has been. He is a charmer and can pretty much talk anybody into anything. He has really been rocking it at work lately and it has not gone unnoticed. Several little things have been happening lately that his bosses have noticed and I think it is probably paving the way for bigger and better things. Certain vendors will step in and start contests for Airgas employees to encourage them to sell their stuff. Besides his paycheck, he gets little bonuses every now and then for selling certain things. A few months ago, Lincoln Electric announced a contest for Airgas employees called "Drive to Indy." (I might get the details wrong here, sorry Brett!) The top 10 sellers (I think) of a particular product would win a trip to the Indy 500. Of all of the millions of Airgas employees... BRETT WON!!!

This is what he got: A trip for two to the 2009 Indianapolis 500 which includes:
*Round trip airfare
*Ground transportation while in the Indianapolis area
*All meals (including a winners banquet the night before the race)
*Hotel
*Police escort on race day to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
*Pit/Garage tours
*Race tickets with full access to the Lincoln Electric suite located just above pit lane on the front straightaway
*A driver "meet and greet" appearance at the suite on race morning

HOW COOL IS THAT! And, yes. He is taking me! We don't know much about Indy racing, but we don't care. We are gonna learn it and LOVE IT!! We know one very important thing though. It is NOT NASCAR. And I do know a couple of racers.. one of them is Helio Castroneves. He won Dancing with the Stars in 2007! The other one I know is cute little Danica Patrick. She is gorgeous and has been on lots of commercials and in many magazines. Both of them are scheduled to race. We are super excited. We are sad that we can't take Quayd, but Brett and I have not gone anywhere alone for over 4 years! It's our turn. Quayd will be fine.. I hope!

Really, we don't win stuff, so this is a pretty big deal to us. We leave on Saturday, May 23rd and come home Monday the 25th. Short and sweet. (Obviously, these are not my pictures. I got them from photobucket.com. Mine will be much better and instead of Julianne Hough standing with Helio, it will be me! And I am sure Brett hopes that instead of Secret deodorant in Danica's underarms, it will be him!!!)

Way to go BRETT!!!! Isn't he awesome? Love that guy! :D

the one about the loss of a dear friend

I have this amazing friend. She has been my constant companion for 6 1/2 years. She doesn't judge me, she doesn't care if I am in a good mood or bad, she doesn't care if I don't smell my best and she never complains about what I watch on tv. My size never matters to her. She likes to read with me, play on the computer with me and listen to any kind of music I like. I am so terribly sad to report that my time with her has come to an end.

This is her.

She is stained, tattered, torn and beat to crap, but she is truly my favorite article of clothing I have ever owned. My mom got it for me when I was pregnant with Quayd. She wanted me to be able to wear it in the hospital and not worry about my butt hanging out and stuff. It is totally ugly and way over sized, but that is what made it so comfy. I probably washed it a million times and it just got softer and softer. I washed it yesterday and hung it in my closet. This evening I wanted to put it on, and the zipper was GONE! It has been loose for a while now and I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. Tonight was the night. When I realized what happened, I was in shock. Seriously. I love this robe! If you have ever come to my house, chances are, you have seen me wearing this. I have always admitted how hideous it is.... but truly, you can't find comfort like this little beauty! Here are a few pictures of her blemishes. Remember, I just washed it! These spots were permanent. Like little love tattoos for me! :)

Look at that lovely embroidery.

And here is her final resting place. RIP my beautiful blue best friend.

the one about chapter books

Quayd is turning into quite the little reader. He is in the top reading group in his class and I swear, wherever we go, he reads every word he sees. If we are in the store, he reads packages. On TV, he reads advertisements, the satellite guide and subtitles. And driving in the car he reads roads signs. You get the idea. Brett and I both LOVE to read and I hope that it rubs off on Quayd. For once, we actually might be a good influence on him!!!

We asked his teacher to send some chapter books home with him so he can read them along with his other little first grade books. He LOVES them! We make him read so we can hear him, but Sometimes I catch him reading to himself. I LOVE IT!!!

The other day, he wanted to build a hotel for cats so he could put Orange inside. He got every pillow and blanket and built a great hotel. Good old Orange climbed right in. Quayd got in too and decided to read to him. It was so cute! It was sorta hard to get pictures, but if you look closely, you will see Orange in there, just happy as can be!

the one about Easter

We had such a nice Easter weekend. It was very casual and not very exciting, but that is fine. We have had lots of stress and craziness lately, so a nice quiet weekend was PERFECT. On Saturday, we got up early and went to the Dinosaur Museum for an Easter egg hunt. This is probably our favorite egg hunt. The kids get to go through the museum and find eggs. When it is all finished, they turn in their eggs for prizes. Not a ton of candy, like most of the egg hunts and it is fun and different. Brayden went with us (Brennen was with is Grandma) but he was too old to hunt eggs at the museum, so he helped Quayd. Quayd doesn’t really need help anymore, but it was fun for them to go together. Quayd even let Brayden get one of his prizes. This is right before it started. They were at the first of the line!

After this, we went to the baseball park for another egg hunt. All of the eggs are real, and the kids don't just love that. They break it up in different age groups and in each group they have one plastic egg. If you get it, you turn it in for a big prize. Brayden found the winning egg in his group! Quayd met up with his friends Rylan and Jeff. They hunted eggs together and had a blast.
After this, we went to Grandma Lane's Church for their egg hunt. Grandma loves it when we can go to this and it is a lot of fun. They hunt for mostly real eggs, but a few candy ones too. After the egg hunt, they have lunch at the Church. We always have fun when we go to this. Grandma with all of the big egg hunters!
We got to see Brynn and her sweet boys. Beau'D loves Quayd and they had fun playing together.

Saturday afternoon consisted of a nice, long nap. Then I made a nice dinner and we just hung out for the evening.

Sunday morning, we were woken up to a phone call at 8:00 am. It was Brennen calling to see what Quayd got from the Easter bunny. Quayd was still asleep, and didn’t wake up until almost 9:00. And that was because we woke him up! Quayd was so excited to get up and see if the Easter bunny came by. Of course, he did!
Quayd got 2 Nintendo DS games, some clothes, some tech deck mini skateboards, a kite, a jump rope and a special note from the Easter Bunny. This is what it said:

Dear Quayd,
The rest of your gift will be well worth the wait,
You'll share it with two other boys who are great!

You will get it for sure when the week is complete,
but you must promise to be really sweet!

My basket was already full to the top,
but here's a hint... it'll make you go Hop! HOP! HOP!

Happy Eater!
Your friend,
The Easter Bunny

Brayden and Brennen got the same note! Since our trampoline was totally falling apart, and we had to throw it away, the boys are sure it is a new trampoline. I guess we will see what the rest of the week holds! ;) The Easter bunny also hid eggs for Quayd to find.
There were TONS of them and they were all over our living room! And, all filled with Quayd's favorite candy. Laffy Taffy, Jolly Ranchers and mini Snickers. (or as he calls them, "sneek-ers!) Brett and I had to laugh, because you could tell that Quayd was an only child by the way he hunted for eggs. He totally took his time and after he found one, he opened it up, looked at its contents and marveled at how the Easter Bunny knows just what he likes. Quayd was in NO HURRY through the entire egg hunt. It was so funny.

My Grandma had a special egg hunt for the boys this morning, and Quayd found the prize egg.... $10.00! They also got a few other eggs with money and candy. Brett, Quayd and I had lunch with my mom. She cooked a ham for croissant sandwiches and made deviled eggs, and I made potato salad. It was so nice with just the four of us and we had a great time. THANKS MOM!!!

We had a nice nap this afternoon, then went to Aunt Debbie's at 5:00 for dinner. It is our family tradition to play Bingo at all of our parties. This one was no different. Brett is always the Bingo caller, and there are prizes for both kids and adults. It is so much fun! They do cool prizes too, but there aren't very many, so you don't always win. We didn't win anything at Christmas, but we all did awesome for Easter! Brett won a $30.00 gift certificate to Canton City and a $30.00 gift certificate to Casa Rios. I won $30.00 in scratch and win tickets, but I only won $3.00. Bummer. And Quayd won a $20.00 bill! It was cool, we were all super excited!

It was such a nice Easter and I am so glad we had peaceful and fun weekend together. Now we need another day to recuperate! Quayd and I get one, but poor Brett has to go back to work. Somebody has to pay for all of our Easter fun!!!

the one about coloring eggs

What would Easter be without coloring eggs? Well, it just wouldn't be Easter. On Friday night, Brayden had been hanging out with us. He stayed and had dinner then we decided to color eggs. Brett did the ones that have the sleeve thing that you put over the egg and dip it in boiling water. That is about the extent of his Easter cheer, but the boys and I had a BLAST! I always just buy the cheap, old fashioned PAZ egg dye. We don't get the fancy schmancy stuff. This year, they had added new colors, and they were awesome! They were so bright and fun! Our kit also had the clear crayon, which is always cool for custom designs! (I sound like a salesman for PAZ Easter egg dye!)

Before:

After:

Some of our favorites said, "Mom + Dad," "Brayd-O is AWESOME," "Quayd is #1," and, sweet little Brayden made this one just for me... "Coolest Aunt Mandy." Sweet huh. I love that kid. He just turned 13 and he still likes to hang out with me. He got a cell phone for his Birthday and he sends me text messages. Love it! He is such a great kid and so sweet to Quayd. He was our buddy this weekend. Anyway,we had a blast coloring our eggs. The boys were both so creative and we just had so much fun. Here are a few more pictures of the evening. Quayd couldn't stand it. He wanted to smash the eggs so badly. He was banging these two together and he acted surprised when they cracked. What a nut!!

the one about a nice relaxing bath

So I was lounging Sunday afternoon and watching some TV with Brett. Orange hopped up by my head and started licking my hair!!! Gross! He has done it before and I know he thinks he is being sweet by giving me a bath, but still.... GROSS! Brett grabbed the camera and took a couple of pictures. I had to share.

the one about my first day of unemployment

First of all, THANK YOU to all of you who have left me such wonderful comments and words of encouragement. Except for yours, Chad! ;) Just kidding, it was awesome too!

I am so grateful for all of my fantastic friends who support me and don't think I am a creepy harasser. I actually am a little bit of a harasser, but only to those that I love. Never to the super prev-o freak of the universe. ANYWAY...... Thanks again for standing behind me.

My first day in the wonderful world of unemployment consisted of many crazy things. I would like to share them with you.

I started a contest with Tara to see who could go the longest without showering before their husband finally comments.

I waxed, plucked and tweezed my eyebrows for 2 hours. They are perfect, symmetrical, swollen and bright red.

Watched the Sex and the City movie twice and Juno once.

Dodged the J.W.'s

Started another contest with Tara to see who could go back to sleep after the kids were gone and sleep the longest.

Compared laundry piles with Tara to see whose was the biggest. (She won only because she has more kids than me!)

Watched my stories.

Began another contest with Tara where we both ate an entire can of corn for breakfast and we will see who SPOTS it first, if you know what I mean.

Be-Dazzled some stuff.

Put my Holiday Inn name tag in the garbage disposal.

Called a plumber.

Started singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to Tara. She told me, "Don't quit your day job." Then we paused, looked at each other and began to laugh.... BECAUSE WE DID QUIT OUR DAY JOBS!!

Made up this crazy list of things, most of them being false, and blogged it.

I think I am actually going to enjoy not working. Tara and I have big plans of all of the things we want to do. Kandice and I are ready to hang out again. In fact, we have a "date" Tuesday. She has a Doctors appointment in Roosevelt and I am going with her. We are going to have lunch and go to Alco! Yeah!! I ran into Leisa at Wal-Mart today and I was telling her that since Quayd went to Kindergarten, I have been working. Besides occasional days off, I haven't really been home all day while he has been at school. I have been so afraid that I would freak out while he was gone. I think I underestimate myself. I am a very busy person and I have so many things I love to do. I never really get bored. I think I will be just fine. I don't want to work anymore. Not for awhile, anyway. I am excited to get back into my card making, scrapbooking and digital scrapbooking. I have a pile of books I want to read and I need to get back in the habit of working out. I have several home improvement projects I need to start on, and 2 unfinished quilts. I am so excited for all of the free time, that won't really be free time since I already see my schedule filling up. Thank you again everyone for your kind words and encouragement. I love you all!

the one about my current employment status

Ok. Here it is. This is a crazy story. I'm going to keep it as short as I can though, but I feel like I need to get my side of the story out there and off my chest. I have to give a little back ground on it though.

First of all, there has been some crazy drama going on at the hotel. Tons of stuff that, thank goodness, has not really involved me. One incident did, sorta, because I was a witness to a "sexual" incident. I had to write a statement about what I saw and everything. Anyway, that has nothing to do with this.

Another thing is that we have this super creepy guy that works there that constantly harasses Tara and I. He lurks around and eavesdrops on our conversations. There are cameras at the front desk so we can see the monitors in the back room. If we were ever in the back and a guest walked up to the desk, we could see them. Creep-O learned how to dodge the cameras and sneak up on us so he could hear what we were saying. It was really weird and we complained to our manager about it a lot, but nothing was ever done. He was also spending a lot of time in the guest business center looking up some very HARD CORE pornography. Our manager knew about it, but he was never punished. He was doing this on the clock. He constantly said very inappropriate things to us, one day asking Tara questions about my sex life. Not OK. But again, no punishment.

Fast Forward......

On Friday afternoon, I was off work. I got a phone call from my boss asking me to come in to work to talk to her. I was sorta concerned, but knew there was nothing I had done wrong so I was probably safe. I figured it had to do with some of the other drama that has been going on. When I got there, I was totally blind sighted to find out I was being written up. A final write up, none the less, stating that if I did anything wrong or said anything wrong, I was terminated. No questions asked. I had a perfectly clean record. No verbals or anything. I was recently evaluate and it was perfect. The reason for the write up was because super creepy freak-o Mr.Perv made up a bunch of lies that Tara and I were constantly begging him to come to the front desk to talk dirty to him. We interrupted his work so he would come to the front to be harassed. WHAT!?!?! He also said that he overheard us saying some things that made him uncomfortable. YAH! Because he eavesdropped! He called our owners and told them that we had done these things. Why were we not asked our side of the story? Why didn't we get to defend ourselves? What about witnesses? Why didn't we have to write a statement? It is not right. There must be something more to it. I have my suspicions of the true meaning of it all, but I am not going there. We were told that if we slipped up at all, we were terminated and it would be on our employment record that we were some horrible monsters that sexually harass other people. Of all the people to turn us in, it was super perv of the universe. We knew we couldn't work in those type of conditions, so we quit. Walked out right then and there.

I have given EVERYTHING I have to that hotel, and this is the thanks I get. I have sacrificed so much for my job. We can survive without the money, its not a huge deal, but it still hurts. I was already stressing about what to do this summer with Quayd. I don't want to have him raised by sitters. I want to be a mommy again. That is the most important job and I am ready to have it back. 100%

the one about floating waffles

My sweet little Quayd is so dang funny! He is so much like his dad in so many ways. One example is food habits. Most of the time, it drives me nuts because they are both so picky! But also, when they find a food they like, they don't like to wander far from it. I am all about variety ao I love to switch things up a lot, but not these two. Quayd's latest food obsession is Eggo Waffles. He is very particular about how he eats them though. I have to toast it, butter it, then cut off the outside edge. I cut it into bite sized pieces and put syrup on it. With every fiber of my being, I hate maple syrup. I hate the taste of it and I despise the smell of it. So when Quayd has waffles, I make him bathe afterward so I don't have to smell it all day. Maple is one of those smells that never goes away.

Adult ADd moment! I am going to stray for the subject for a minute here... Before we had Quayd, we used to sit by this family at Church. In Sacrament meeting, their kids always had this cereal that smelled like maple syrup. I had one of their kids in the nursery when I was the Nursery leader and even hours after they ate that cereal, I could smell it on them. From that day on, I decided that I would never let my kids smell like maple syrup.

Anyway, getting Quayd up in the morning is usually a total joke! He is so mean! So cramming in waffles, bath and everything else was getting dificult. One morning, I put Quayd in the tub and fixed his waffle. I put the waffle on a small plate and let him eat it in the tub. (The things we do for our kids!) Well, then he decided that was a great idea, so now we have to do that every morning. I kept thinking I needed to take a picture of him. Well, today was the day. As I was walking out of the bathroom to put the camera away, I heard, "OH NO!!" I went back in the bathroom and found this.