Life has been hectic and stressful lately, so I decided to take the time to list a few things that I am thankful for. Hopefully, that will raise my spirits.

1. My job. I only teach one day a week, but I make good money, and I keep up my skills just in case I have to do it full time.

2. Danny's parents. They watch my kids while I teach. For free. I've tried to pay them, but they refuse!

3. Living close to everything. I am without a car today, but it's no problem because I'm within walking distance of almost any place that I need, especially Anna's school.

4. Beautiful weather.

5. Drugs. More specifically, allergy medications, decongestants, and nasal sprays.

6. Tommy's school(s) and the fact that our next ARD isn't until the middle of April! He might just finish out the year!

7. My iPod.

8. Craigslist. I don't think I go a day without looking for something on there!

9. Eddie sleeping through the night TWO nights in a row! Since he came down with Strep, he's been waking up in the middle of the night. Poor baby!

10. Goodwill. I love the fact that I can fill up bags and boxes full of stuff that I don't want, and they'll take it!

What are you thankful for?

The full story

Thank you for all of your comments about that "lovely" little craft that I posted! I found it in Tommy's backpack, very badly wrapped (obviously by Tommy), with a note that said "for you". I asked Tommy about it and he swore that he didn't make it, and judging by the Made in China tag on the back, I'm assuming that it came from some cheap dollar store somewhere. This is not the first gift like this that I have recieved from "Tommy". At Christmas, I got this horrible fish candle holder! His teacher is very interesting, to say the least!

Do you like this?

Okay, I need your opinion. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this gift I recieved. Don't worry, no feelings will be hurt, I would just like to know if this is your type of thing or not. I'm looking forward to what you have to say, and please be 100% honest about your answer!

Giveaway!!

I know you all like free stuff, so hop on over here, and win a free photo session! Don't be shy! Leave a comment and you could be a winner!

Eddie Update

Eddie threw up again on Saturday when we got home, and was a congested mess on Sunday with a fever of 102. I took him to the doctor first thing Monday morning, and learned that he has Strep. Yep. The dreaded s-word. He threw up again yesterday and is just not feeling well at all. Poor baby! Let's cross our fingers and hope that no one else gets it!

So, that means that I'm not teaching today. It's kind of driving me nuts, especially because I'm not getting paid, AND I have students going to contest on Saturday. I haven't had a solid day of teaching since the last Tuesday of January! I know some of my parents are getting frustrated with me, but what can I do? Sigh...that's the dilemma with working and being a mom. I'm having problems with it and I only work one day a week, so I totally feel for all of you moms who work full-time!

"Vacation" Day 3 - Valentine's Day

Eddie slept well Friday night, and woke up happy, so we decided to head on out to the Alamo. We had passed the Alamo many times on our walks to and from the convention center, but we didn't ever stop and go inside. It was quite chilly Saturday morning, but we were prepared with jackets and sweaters.

The kids thought that the Alamo was very cool and were very quiet and respectful inside.

This tree is absolutely stunning. The entire courtyard was so green, beautiful, and peaceful.
We happened to come on a day when they were doing re-enactments. Tommy was fascinated by the soldiers and wanted his picture taken with them, but when he got closer to them, and they showed him their swords, he was suddenly very shy.

Anna just loved looking at all the ladies with their big, beautiful dresses. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the show.

This is one of the few pictures that I took of the river walk. The kids loved walking along the river, but there was too much talk about kicking each others butts into the river, we decided to keep them away from that temptation.

By 10am, Eddie was asleep.

Tommy LOVED this booth! It was right next to a pizza and cake fundraiser, and it had cool drums that the kids could play on. We spent a lot of time there!

We left at 1pm on Saturday, but we didn't get home until a little after 8pm thanks to a disasterous tip to the Roundrock outlet mall! Yes, Tommy managed to get lost. How did he not get lost in all of San Antonio and the entire convention center, but get lost at Children's Place?! At least we found him, and he was properly scared out of his mind and sobbing.

Overall, it was a good trip. I got to see a lot of old college, high school, and sorority friends and catch up with them. I also got to see some directors that I worked with in Arlington, which was a very interesting experience. Danny learned a lot from his clinics and got to see some great performing ensembles. The kids had a good time, and no one got hurt, but it will most definitely be a while before we attempt this again!

"Vacation" Day 2 - Friday

Day 2: We ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed on out to the best place in the world for kids in San Antonio - the Children's Museum, but first, here's the view from our hotel room. Not pretty.

The children's museum was awesome! The kids LOVED it and did not want to leave! We stayed for 2 hours and left at lunch time when they were getting tired and hungry.



There were 3 floors to the museum, so I abandoned the stroller and followed Eddie around, and up and down!

Anna and Tommy both agreed that the kids' market was the best part of the museum!

You could scan all of the items and the price and name of the item showed up on the computer screen, just like at a real grocery store. Anna loved playing cashier.

Eddie found a computer and went right to work instant messaging gibberish to the person on the other side.

The kids also loved the virtual reality drum game!

No, that's not real milk that Anna's getting out of that cow. It was just water, but it was fun!

We went back to the convention and hung around for a couple of hours on the convention floor checking out some more vendors. The kids got kazoos from one vendor and when we got back to the hotel room, the kids formed a kazoo band.

Eddie thought the kazoo was hilarious and each time he made a sound with it, he would laugh hysterically!

We spent the afternoon in the hotel room resting, playing, and watching cartoons. Around 6pm, though, things went bad. Really bad. Eddie was playing on the bed with Tommy, when he just threw up. All over Anna's blanket. Eddie was not feeling well at all, and it just came on so quickly! I washed Anna's and Eddie's blankets in the sink, and luckily, there was a laundry facility at the hotel, so I put them in the dryer. Around that time Anna realized that she didn't pack any underwear! She had a complete melt-down, and I had to wash the ones that she was wearing. It was a hard evening. Danny got back and we ordered pizza and relaxed. The kids crashed fast and hard, and we all got to sleep early!

"Vacation" Day 1 - Thursday

This is Danny's year for the school to pay for him to go to the TMEA (Texas Music Educators Association) Convention in San Antonio. I thought it would be a great idea to take the kids with us and make a little vacation out of it. I honestly don't know what I was thinking.

This is day one:

We woke up at 5am, got showered and ready and hit the road by 6am. We got to my mom's at 7:30 to pick up some snacks and a pack-n-play and left at 8. The kids were fine in the car for a while until about 2 hours in our drive when Eddie was complaining about the sun in his face. We didn't have any window shades so we decided to stop at Wal-Mart in Waco and get some. The people in Waco were SO nice! There was a sweet old lady who parked next to us and she just loved the kids! She told us that they reminded her of her grandkids who moved to Germany. Some people were a bit TOO nice. Me, Anna, and Eddie got stopped by this crazy man at the door who insisted on giving Eddie a 5 dollar bill to put in the collection bin for some church that was pan-handling at the door. He wouldn't leave us alone until Eddie grabbed the money and put it in the bucket. It was so wierd. We left and once again things were fine until we got to Rockwall. Eddie started complaining again, so we figured he needed a diaper change. We saw Ikea and we decided it would be a great place to stop. As we were driving into the parking lot, we saw this cool little park! We let the kids out to play, and they had a lot of fun!

Eddie was just finishing up his business in his diaper here, we think. We changed him, and hit the road once again. We finally got to San Antonio at around 2pm and headed out to the convention center. Our hotel was about a mile from the convention center, so we walked A LOT!

We passed this cool park on the way and stopped to let the kids climb on the cannons.

We registered at the convention and I hit the convention floor with the kids and Danny went off to his first clinic. There were hundreds of vendors so there was tons of stuff to see! At every booth, they had something free. Mostly it was pens, pencils, or candy, but we ran across some fundraiser places that had slices of cake, cheesecake, fresh cookies, chips, candy, pizza, and garlic bread! You could walk around and have a full meal of junk food! Soon, it was time for me to head to my clinic. I gathered up all three kids and prayed that they would behave!

We came across this cool hallway filled with bronze statues! The kids loved climbing on them, but we couldn't stay long. I got to my clinic about 30 minutes late, but it was a good thing, because the kids were not quiet and still for the 20 minutes that I was there. I still got a lot out of it, though. Mr. Murrow scares me a little, but he knows a lot about Tuba playing and I learned a lot from his clinic!

Soon, it was time for dinner and we headed out to Fudruckers, of course! That's kechup on Eddie's face, by the way.

Yes, that's Tommy making silly faces for the camera! We finished up dinner and headed to our hotel room. The kids were SO tired, but they had the hardest time getting to sleep! Our room was on the top floor at the very end of the hotel next to a VERY busy street! The street sounds were loud, and Tommy and Anna didn't like sharing a bed. But, everyone, including myself ,was asleep by 10pm.

Migraines and Mattresses

I woke up with a headache yesterday, but it wasn't bad. It was just a dull ache all day long, but when I couldn't shake it, I knew it would get worse. It's been a while since I've had a migraine, so I was due to get one. Eddie woke up just as I was about to go to bed last night (he had gas, poor kid), so I didn't get to sleep until around midnight. At 4am, I woke up with a pounding headache and nausea that didn't ease until sometime around 6:30, so I got around 4 hours of sleep last night. My head still hurts a little, so I'm taking it easy today.

BUT, on the bright side, our new mattress arrives today! I'm SO excited! Our last mattress was a no-name cheap pillowtop from an outlet store that we bought almost 9 years ago. It should have been replaced 4 years ago, but we never wanted to plunk down the cash for a good mattress. Well, we decided it was time to bite the bullet, and we got a great deal. We walked into Mattress Giant (the new one off of Stacy Rd that gets very little business because of on-going construction) and were greeted by a salesperson who had not had a customer all day! We were just looking, and not intending on buying anything. He desperately wanted to get SOME kind of commission that day, so he gave us his employee discount and all sorts of free stuff (delivery and pick-up) just to get our business. Well, he won us over. It's a great mattress, and I can't wait to sleep on it tonight!

Half Full?

I just read a great post on THIS blog about attitude. So, I will NOT take up time complaining about how extremely tired I am, how my head feels like it's going to explode, how I SHOULD be getting the oil changed in my car right now, but I'm sitting at my computer instead, how I ate a brownie for breakfast instead of my usual healthy stuff, how my kitchen is a complete and total disaster, how I have a ton of laundry that needs to be done today, or how Manuel (Danny's dad) has his surgery today at 12:30 and we're not sure how well he'll do (please say a prayer for him!).

Instead, I will only focus on the good stuff today. Like the fact that Eddie slept through the night without a teething episode or gas, or that the sun is shining and it should be a great day for the kids to play outside, or my husband has an extra-curricular activity that he enjoys that takes up ONLY two nights a month, or Anna didn't whine or complain AT ALL this morning, or my meds should kick in ANY minute and I should be feelin' good, or I get to do my taxes today and hopefully have a big fat refund in a couple of weeks (I actually really enjoy doing my taxes. I know, I'm a nerd.)!

Today will be a half full day. I will NOT be a "negative nellie". I will try to change my attitude and make it a great day. Will you?