Happy 14th birthday to Katie!!!!
Yesterday was the first day of high school...traffic was a nightmare!! Finally had to have her hop out of the car and run. Luckily, in the car in front of us was her friend, Michael, and once they got to the light, they walked the rest of the way together. Turns out they were fine on time, they gave them an extra 15 mins to pick up their schedules and get to their first class. She seemed to have a good day, 2.5 hours of homework.
The hard thing with Ally is we have a 45 minute to 1 hour wait for her school to start. And with traffic if we went home, we would only be home 10 minute before we have to leave, so not worth...
Ally also seemed to do well in 4th. Boy is 33 kids a lot!! No homework until next week. Which I think is great, let them get settled and into a route before adding the homework.

This morning, I got to have breakfast with Lisa! That was a nice treat, I haven't seen her since last June!!!! She had school all of July and the cruise. Then August was a trip to St Jude's in Memphis for Stephanie's 6 month check up. When she got back the next morning was freshman orientation for Christina and Katie. So we spent 2 kid free hours catching up. She starts school again next week.

The frig guy was back out, please keep your fingers crossed that it is finally fixed!!!! We will know about Thursday as 4 days after it gets fixed is usually when it starts going south. Although there is not much else they can fix. So far we have had the gasket, mother board, sensor, defrost heater and the condensor unblock.

on the frig

Ok, so it appears to still be under the warranty, so they are coming out again on Mon. What a pain, that is the first day of school! In the mean time we are using the frig that was bought for upstairs and put it in the livingroom

see above LOL

Went to get a drink of milk last night and the milk was cold, but not as cold as I like it. I am one that likes it really cold, the frig was set at 9. What the heck? We have just had the mother board and gasket replaced and the condensor (sp) cleared. The ice cream on the top shelf in the freezer was also soft. Ice was forming on the back wall, so is it the original part that the guy had order, but was sent back, because it was testing normal? The only other thing we could think of, was maybe the freezer need to be turned down from high so the defrost would work better. We tried this in the beginning, didn't help, and there was still the massive banging noise. So we are trying it again. The frig does appear to be cooler now and the soda I put in as a tester at about 4:30 is cold, so please keep your fingers crossed.
To play it safe, once Shirley leaves I will dig out the frig that was originally upstairs and see how much work it will take to get it up to speed. It is a very small one, but at this point I have spent too much time trucking to the garage to get food, need at least the basics inside. True we could bring the frig we are currently using in, but it tends to leak from the bottom.
The other option is to buy a new frig, of course it would not be a side by side, which at this point is fine. My concern is if we have to move and the new place comes with a frig. We did buy the warranty from Sears on this one, but it only goes up to $500 in repairs and we are currently at $492, so any other repairs will be out of pocket.
Now on to some more exciting news!!! ALLY TAUGHT HERSELF TO TIE SHOES!!! I know most of us learned at 5, but with the shoes now days, a lot of kids don't know how. We have yet to have her try and do it while it's on her feet, she has been working on Daddy's and Katie's as they have longer laces. Figure give her a few days then work on her own shoes.

And of course our furry babies

Sneakers, not looking as fluffy (see last pix for fluffiness)

Isabelle and Bailey Bailey
Phantom, Isabelle,and Bailey
Phantom AKA Big Man, you gotta love that tummy. This is Katie's baby, all 16lbs of him.
And the newest baby, Sneakers

testing

just figuring out how to upload pix. I love this one because Katie is perfectly alined to look like she's wearing Mickey ears.

getting started

Ok, I started a blog, but where to begin??
I'm don't have the knack of writing, so why bother, I'm just a mom. This blog is mainly for me so I can look back and reflect on fond, and not so fond memories.
I am married. Almost half my life, hard to imagion not being married. Lived with Jeff as long as I lived with my mother. We have been married for 18.5 years.
Our girls are 9 and almost 14. Hard to believe one has finally made it out of the primary side and the other is going off to high school.
I love to spend time trying to find good deals to travel. Sometimes spending hours punching in different dates and destinations. Or trolling the disney boards.
Jeff is loves his Cowboys and is busy on those boards. It's his way of relaxing from the daily grind, he works as a manufactures rep for the independent dealer side for a paint company
Katie, loves guitar hero, reading and playing on the computer.
and Our Ally is obsessed with having a party with 23 people, most of them are people from the channel 7 news crews. She also likes playing on the computer.

School starts next week, summer went so fast...
It should have seemed longer, especially since for 3.5 weeks we were dealing with a broken frig. I watch my nieces and nephew 3 days a week during the summer (and just my nephew during the school year), that helps entertain Ally. Today is actually my last summer day with the girls, it will just be Con on Friday.


Gotta run the kiddos home!

Mary