I love 'em!!

I had so much fun this afternoon playing with our dogs!! We took them out to "grandma and grandpa's" to play. We used our tennis ball slingshot and sent the dogs running. Within ten minutes, the little one was tuckered out and just layed on the grass drinking water. The big dog kept playing fetch, but definitely lost some of his 'gusto.' After about 30 minutes, he was done too. We ended up with a mudball (created by dog slobber and dirt from the corn field) and two tired boys.

(Notice the tongues hanging out?? They've been out ALL night now!!)

In the life of a preschooler

I was covering someone's shift in the 3 year-old room at the daycare this morning. We were trying to get all the kids to the carpet so we could spell a word before they went outside to play. I looked over and saw a little girl pulling her pants down. I told her she needed to keep her pants on and she replied with, "But I want to show (insert name) my itchy" She contined to pull her pants, so finally I had to pick her up and carry her to the bathroom, where we waited until she decided to get dressed again.

The real shocker happened on Monday though. I was checking child A out and talking to the child A's parent. Child B decided to interrupt me to tell me that his mom said she wanted to break his dad's...(in a loud whisper)...penis. I was dumbfounded about what to say to child B. And to top it off, another parent was just watching and waiting to see how I'd respond. (Maybe she wasn't really, but I sure felt like she was!!)

Such a wonderful job!!

It's officially nice when...

Our cats appear out of nowhere to sit in the windowsill when they hear the plastic coming off...


Our dogs tongues spend more time out of their mouths than in, because they get to run around the backyard like crazy playing fetch...

(Isn't the little one cute with his ears flipped over??)

And last, but not least, the temperature in our house is above 62 degrees!!

Freaky-deaky blackout

After work on Thursday, I headed up to the mall to get an eye exam. When that was over, I walked out of their with two numb eyes...kind of a weird feeling. A friend of mine from Iowa City had come to Ames that day to visit friends and see Narnia in theatres. So the plan was, I'd wait for her when I got done with my eye appointment so we could go look at my beautiful wedding dress (yay!!). I did a little shopping, bought myself a new shirt and Aaron some new ties, and then decided to wait for her outside the theatres. I checked my cell phone a couple times to see how much longer until her movie was over and right about the time I thought she should be walking out, the lights flickered and went out.

I sat there, rather calmly (and if you know how much I dislike thunderstorms, calm is tough for me to accomplish) waiting for the emergency lighting to come on. And I waited...and waited a little longer...but no lights!! So I got up and walked over near the doors to see that there is a torrential downpour outside and I can't see more than 3 feet out. I start to get nervous. Then, I remember that I have a little LED flashlight on my keychain, so I get that baby out and set out to find my friend and her kids.

I find them doing much the same thing I was. Standing near a door for the small amount of light it produced and wondering what in the world was going on!! After a few minutes of conversation, I find out that her car is being fixed at Sears and is up on a lift, so she's stuck there for the count. So, instead of going to look at my beautiful dress (yay!!), I throw all the stuff in my car into the trunk, we all pile into my car, and I manuver through the dark, dangerous streets. (That's not just for dramatic effect...there were no streetlights or stoplights, so things were a little crazy!!) I was able to drop my friends off at a friend of theirs, so they could safely await the call that said their car was done. It may be a while before I go back to the mall though...

Budget Billing

Is anyone else on a budget plan for their energy bill?? We are, but I don't know why anymore. For the first 5 months, we paid "X" as our budget amount. I opened the statement today and they're charging us X+19 for this month's budget amount and I saw a note saying next month it will be X-6. Isn't the purpose of budget billing to pay the same amount every month for 12 months in a row?? And of course, I'm too impatient to wait the 9-13 minutes they're predicting on the customer service line, so I don't know why...

Milk-less cereal

I poured myself a bowl of cereal this morning and then went to get the milk, only to realize we didn't have any. So I thought, "Okay, I'll have some yogurt instead." But there were only 2 yogurts left, one was expired and the other was one of Aaron's flavors that I don't like. So what else could I have for breakfast...some toast maybe!! Wait, we'd have to have bread for that. In the end, I ate my bowl of cereal without any milk. I think maybe we should try to make it to the grocery store soon.

The good news is, our dogs should only have to spend a couple hours in their cages today. It seems like all week long we've had so much stuff going on that they've been in their cages for 10-12 hours a day. Currently, they're enjoying rawhide bones and not even fighting about who gets which one. Our puppies are growing up!!

Mufasa, Simba, Scar and the Gang

I must rave about how wonderful the Lion King was. (For those who don't know, the Broadway Musical is in Des Moines for 6 weeks.) My mom and I had a girls night out last night and it was great!! We started out by going to Splash, a seafood restaurant right across from the Civic Center, that also has amazing chocolate chip peanut butter cheesecake. Then we headed right over to the show, with just enough time to find our seats and make a quick trip to the bathroom. The costumes and sets were amazing. My favorites were the giraffes and the elephant. The only part of the night that I would have changed would be the couple sitting next to my mom that had to talk about everything. And I stress, talk, not whisper. "Oh look, there's a zebra!!" "Do you see the tears?? Wow!!" "Look at the birds!!" I must stress though, that it was an otherwise splendiferous night!!

Kookamunga

So I spend a lot of time talking about our dogs, but we also have two cats. For Christmas, we bought them a new toy and some Kookamunga CatNip treats. Amy, who is very skittish around people, including us, has become the most affectionate cat in the world. Whenever we're sitting on the couch, she comes up and nuzzles up to us and cuddles, in hopes of scoring some Kookamunga. It is hilarious. And how cute is she??

Can I have some Kookamunga please guy??

Piles and piles of stuff

Aaron had to work at 6:30 this morning and I don't have to work until 3:30 tonight, so I have the whole day at home with just me and the animals. I am doing my best to be productive (not that you can tell, since I'm online right now!!) but I just realized how much stuff we have EVERYWHERE in our house. I spent over an hour just sorting through the piles of stuff in our office.

My next task is to rearrange the furniture in our house, so that everything is back where it belongs. A bunch of stuff got moved around before the Super Bowl (yes, a month ago!!) and hasn't been moved back yet.

The worst part is, even if everything gets put away where it belongs, we will still have a basement and a garage full of stuff that we need to get rid of. I can't wait until this summer when we can have a garage sale and hopefully get our house back!!

Oh my Goodness!!

I still maintain that it was mean to call me weeks before I said I could pick up my dress to say it was done, I am happy to say that my mom and my Steven are going to accompany me up to Minneapolis this weekend so that we can pick up my dress!! I'm VERY VERY VERY excited.

Also, Aaron and I get to purchase our wedding bands soon!! And by soon, I mean sometime this weekend most likely!! We found some that we love in an eBay store, so we want to get them ordered while we still have the chance.

I also got to drop a class that I HATE earlier this week and I found out tonight that I have a pretty good chance of being able to see my little brother in a couple weeks!! I have to say, although I still have way more to do than I have time for and I'm a bit tired, this has been a pretty good week!!