The First Day of the New Year

Okay, just for the record, I absolutely hate making titles for my posts. I never think of anything creative or imaginative. Often times, my posts dash from subject to subject and there's no one title that covers it all. So yeah, I hate them.

Anyway, moving along!

I took the day off from work to spend some time with the kids and it's been a pretty fun day. My mom cooked this huge ham dinner, with all the fixin's, and the kids have been snacking all day. Not content with just that, between the four of them, they've polished off a bag of bbq potato chips and an entire box of strawberry shortcake rolls. We didn't realize they were sneaking the snacks in, until they were all running around the house, screaming, chasing each other, and in general going nuts. That, and the gas.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

I'm surprised the house is still on its foundation.

We were all watching "Walk the Line" (absolutely fantastic movie by the way!!!!). All of a sudden, we heard this rumble and we're all looking around wondering what on earth that was, when Alene, who was laying on the floor next to her brother started yelling, "SCOTTY!!!!" and rolling away from him, while simultaneously trying to hit him with a pillow.

My mom and I being the mature adults of the group of course... started laughing so hard we could barely breathe. They've all been having this "war" now and the bottle of febreze has been well-used. If it wasn't like -15 flipping degrees outside, the windows would be open too. *Note to self: teach children appropriate time to engage in Gas Wars so as to not harm the innocent bystanders with their noxious fumes.

I have this little song that I hum to Little Shadow to get her to sleep and she refuses to let anyone else do it. Last night, I got home from work, and my mom tried to do it and she goes, "NO DARCE! Only my Amer can sing my song to me." This had us laughing for quite a while.

My sister is slowly getting her stuff moved back over to the house and she started with her cat. My bed was quite full between the two year old, the cat, my laptop, and my... err... voluptuous (yes, I adore that word!!) rear end. I have no idea how the two of them managed it, but I almost got booted out of bed about four different times.

However, Little Shadow is sleeping with my mom tonight. My dad had to go to Wyoming for a day or two of meetings. I hope the poor kid can get some sleep; my mom snores like a freight train! Christmas Eve, my sister and I were sleeping on the queen-sized blow-up mattress and my parents were in their bed (we all had to share a room because of all the people there). My mom was already snoring by the time my dad came to bed and my sister and I had fallen into old habits. She was trying to stick her ice-cold feet on me, I was kicking them off of me, and fighting for more covers to wrap my exposed skin in (she'll find any bare part there is and stick those cold suckers on them!). We both had a bad case of the giggles and were cracking jokes about my mom's snoring problem. We heard dad settle in and tried to control the urge to giggle. But I'd feel her bouncing up and down on the opposite side of me from laughter and that would set me off all over again. My dad's dry comment of, "you girls are reminding me of when you were little" made us laugh that much harder. Then we asked him, "dad, how have you managed to get any sleep laying next to mom every night with her snoring!?" He goes, "I haven't." When Ashley and I finally quit snickering and laughing, we decided to buy him a pair of ear plugs the first chance we got.

However, that time hasn't come around yet and I hardly think a two year old would wear them even if they were available, haha.

In any case, I have to work 12:00pm to 10:00pm tomorrow so it will be a long shift and I can't be staying up till 2:00am like Little Shadow tends to do! Kid takes after her cousin, haha.

The kids are watching Mrs. Doubtfire and that song "Doin' It Like A Lady" or "Dude That Looks Like A Lady" - I'm not really sure which. But anyway, it came on so to make the kids laugh, I got up and started dancing around the living room like a crazy woman, shakin' my butt and doing some really dumb moves. I guess I succeeded because while they were laughing, Alene goes, "Amber, that's embarassing." Nothing quite like having your dancing embarass someone else to make you feel torn between laughter and absolute retardedness. But whatever. It worked. The kids were laughing like crazy - who cares if I made myself look like an idiot to do it, haha.

Well, it has been a long day and I need to go spend some time with the kiddos before bedtime as I'll be gone most of the day tomorrow.

Hope your year has started off on a great foot! :)