Swim wear, what happened to the fabric?

Yes, Im going there! It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, that I could go into any one of a dozen stores in the mall and buy a nice swimsuit, one piece or two, and it was made out of something more than 2 patches and a leaf.  As the mom of a young daughter, and mamaw of 3 little granddaughters, I am to the point of screaming and throwing a tantrum because everything either looks like it belongs on a pole dancer, or its just plain ugly.

Piggles favorite store is Aeropostale. I occasionally do some shops for them when I see them come up on the sites. Who would pass up a "free" shopping trip right? But even their swimwear appears to be lacking this year.

A friend bought her 13 yr old daughter this TOP and BOTTOM Now I realize these are not 6 or 7 yr old little girls, but the low rise is just a bit too low in my opinion.  Why cant they make cute tankini suits for girls/tweens/teens? Why must everything be micro mini?

Maybe Im just getting old. 

Tee-Ball

With all the rain, we have had 3 rained out games now :( But we have had 3 GOOD games too! The kiddos are really picking things up (thanks to Digger and his teeball lessons in the front yard LOL)



Just some pictures to share :) 

Devil Child is on the "cubs" its a team of mainly 4 yr olds and their coach is a SAINT!

She actually hit the ball without the tee this time WOOT!

Lil dude is on the "Reds" and they have a more level playing field with equal numbers of 4 5 or 6 yr olds

first time at bat, missed in 3 tries so then the tee is brought out

He NAILED the ball this time though! Go Bubba!

Caught the ball with his shirt and the wrong hand... but caught it none the less LOL

Playing catch up again, but this time I blame Blogger!

I had quite a few things to post about recently and I saw where blogger was going to be down on Wednesday. Then the Wednesday down time stretched into Thursday so here I am playing catch up with the events going on in our house.

It has been a little over 3 weeks since Beanie had baby P. She started a new job that is part time at 2 weeks postpartum. She finally convinced her doctor that she was feeling find and needed to return to work at her full time job, which pays significantly more than the part time one she picked up to try and survive. He signed her release form this past Tuesday.

It makes me so irritated. First because the baby is only 3 weeks old. Second because Beanie is making her first real effort with breastfeeding and is old enough to actually enjoy the closeness it is offering her with the newest one. Third because she continues to do everything in her power to keep her little family afloat, while her deadbeat dickweed sits at home playing Xbox.

So now I have baby P Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday for 12 hours each day. Unlike the other girls who I keep the entire time, Beanie is trying to keep breast feeding so I meet her in the morning with the baby and she takes care of her/feeds her for the 10 hours she is home from work.

Yesterday morning I took her home, Beanie said she had pumped about 7 ounces the night before at work for me to use last night. She was going to pump one last time before I picked the baby up at 6 that evening. When I got there the dickweed (who doesnt want her breast feeding anymore) not only USED most of the milk she pumped for me, but he purposely didnt wake Beanie up to feed the baby for 2 of the feedings while she was home, after she specifically told him to wake her up. Then the asshat took the inside part of the breastflow bottle out, because he felt it was too hard for the baby to get the milk. The ENTIRE point of the breastflow bottle is to make it harder to suck, making it more like breastfeeding. It helps the baby continue to breastfeed when mom returns to work.

He even went so far as to call and make a WIC appt for the baby, so he could get formula. What he doesnt realize is that he isnt watching the baby... ever.  Beanie is pretty set on that, and for that Im very proud of her. Its bad enough that he propped bottles on the other 2 girls as early as a month old. But with Baby J and her run ins with the highway and passing motorists, him watching his children isnt a safe option. 


Now if she would just get the courage to either kick him out or leave the situation. It won't ever get any better Im afraid :(

The Chicken Whisperer

If there is such a thing, Baby J will be one, without a doubt. Any time we venture outside, I find her with her shoes off, sitting in the coop in the middle of straw and chicken shit... cuddling chickens like they are children. The mama gene is there, no doubt. She will hug, cuddle, kiss and wrap in a blanket if given enough time without strict supervision. Chickens are her passion. Anytime we are not doing something she asks to visit the chickies.  Even when we are busy she wants the chickies. If she could get away with it, she would have them back in the house, for sure. the funny thing is, even when the other kids cant seem to catch a chicken to hold/cuddle or just pet.... Baby J can sit right down and they come up to her. They either let her catch them, or she has a magic touch.


The little chicken whisperer in action.

Chickens do make lovely hats, don't you agree? LOL

 Not at all thrilled that she is being forced to leave the coop for the night... because it is getting dark.

Too Many Shoes!

I'm getting buried under a pile of shoes. There are shoes for 7 people in my house, all piled up in my laundry room floor, half the time blocking the washing machine. I have been searching for shoe organizers high and low. We tried the over the door deal, and that is a no go. It probably wouldn't be as bad if there weren't at least 4 pairs of shoes per person. Realistically they need access to at least 2 pairs of those 4. Flipflops/sandals and athletic/sneaker/tennis shoe type shoes.

Everyone takes their shoes off at the back door.House rule. It keeps me from having to vacuum every 3 minutes and going insane. There is no closet at the back door (or the front door for that matter, heck there aren't enough closets in the housed PERIOD!... but that is beside the point)The bedroom closets are not an option because this would mean they would either walk through the house to get to the bedroom, thus tracking straw, grass, dirt, mud, chicken shit etc across the house, or trying to get them to remember to take them off THEN put them away. Might work on the older 3  but the little ones? Not much of a chance!

So this is my current shoe nightmare--- Id say excuse the mess, but that is what this post is about, ideas to eliminate a MESS! 

So I'm open to kid friendly (ages 15,12,5,4 and 2) suggestions to get the shoes off the floor, and organized so that everyone is not scrambling to find 2 matching shoes any time we head out the door... well everyone except Baby J, she is a true shoeless hillbilly child, and would go without if you didn't force her to wear them!



Previously tried and unsuccessful ideas:
This was tried briefly and lasted long enough for a certain 2 or 4 yr old to attempt to scale it when no one was in the laundry room  GAAH!










and then something similar to this was tried, but didn't work due to the height it is hanging on the back of the door. Too tall for the littles to reach shoes beyond the lowest rung and it only holds three pairs of shoes per row, thus shoes aren't accessible for independent kids.

Mother's Day

We never seem to have concrete plans for much of anything and Mother's Day was no different.  I spent the morning at the grocery store with Beanie, then spend the afternoon planting flowers with the kids, and making Mother's Day artwork, Digger and I taught lil dude how to ride his bike with no training wheels. A huge feat simply because he is about off balance as I am most days!  We finished it up by having  a cook out... and finally sending Beanie and her girls HOME so I could relax :)


Few pictures :)

From lil dude, in that beautiful kindergarten scrawl.

The littlest one... helping me plant flowers. Not much got done. I am super woman but you can only do so much with 1 hand ;)

Baby J just isnt real smiley about this. Lil dude tried to help her out LOL

The Great Pumpkin Lives

Some of you may recall pictures from 4 yrs ago of lil dude and my decoration pumpkin. If not here's the background


I had this cute pumpkin I stuck in the middle of my kitchen table every fall. It's a real sized pumpkin. When lil dude was 2 he broke the stem off using it as a stepping stool in the bathroom so he could "brush his teef". So he used it for a couple years, and then outgrew it.

In comes devil child, who used it as well, however its probably been a good almost year since anyone has used my pumpkin as a stepping stool.

Until this morning. The great pumpkin rises again! I walked into the kitchen and Baby J was trying to get a sippy cup down and she found the pumpkin (I Have no clue where it was I dont use it on the table anymore LOL)