What A Week!!

Okay, this has been quite a week. Work is full speed and so is the overtime. Ronnie is still working the off duty security job almost everyday he is off and working the High School Basketball games. In fact when Ronnie was finally home this past weekend, the boys followed him around constantly. And even Zac who is not a cuddler had to have some cuddle time with Daddy.




Ronnie also used his off time to put Zac's bed together. Zac was soooo proud of it and has done a real nice job of keeping his room clean since. The race car bed went to Bynum and we hope he enjoys it as much as Zac did.

Tonita, notice the blanket (the Bs) are still close by at the foot of the bed. He is only pretending to be asleep in this picture or they would be up higher. Kari, the pictures behind the pillow are his collection of Trae. He still needs another picture frame for the latest wallets you gave him and he keeps reminding me. Hopefully I get to that this weekend.

It doesn't look like things are going to slow down any time soon. Zac has a basketball game Saturday morning at 9 (his team is undefeated with only 2 regular season games left) and then he has an eye doctor appt at 1:00 and Justin has a birthday party to attend also at 1:00. Justin has his first round of tournaments Saturday at 4 at Danville. He plays the other West Morgan team. They already beat us once so it may be a short tournament for us. Ronnie gets off work at 6 and I have to be at work at 6:30. We are 5 dispatchers short right now at work so there is a lot of overtime. Klancy, if Michael hasn't thought about it he might look to see if any of the agencies are hiring down there. The pay is okay, but the benefits are usually really good. The hours suck to begin with but get better with senority--says the dispatcher with 18 years in who is working nights all weekend! Anyway it is all computer based these days and there isn't any lifting so he might look into it.

Can you believe it is February in the morning?

Words on Wednesday

Well Wednesday is supposed to be wordless Wednesday in the blog world, but since I really don't have any pictures that I haven't shared we will talk about words--more specifically books I've read lately. I just finished From Potter's Field by Patricia Cornwell. It was pretty good. The last time I read her was when Ronnie and I first got married and we were living in the townhouse in Decatur. That book scared me to death and I called Ronnie at work and told him to announce himself when he was coming up the stairs that night (he worked 2nd shift back then) because I was sleeping with the gun! I had every light in the house on that night! I vowed then that she was too scary for me, but it was a good book (the title escapes me now). Well some 12 years later I finally read another book by Patricia Cornwell and I'm glad I did. I am trying to talk Ronnie into reading it because I think he will enjoy it. We read a lot of the same books and it is close to the type of story line he likes. He just finished The Investigators by W.E.B. Griffin. He and I both liked it. It is part of the Badge of Honor series and he has read several of them.

Currently I am reading my last Anne George book, Murder Makes Waves. It is kind of a bittersweet feeling. I love her books but since she has died there won't be anymore. For those that haven't read her, I highly recommend her books! She is a great Alabama author and her southern sisters series refers to many landmarks in Birmingham. (Klancy, you should read her if you haven't.)

My mother-in-law has given me a couple that she has finished. We read a lot of the same authors. She has just finished a couple of the Janet Evanovich "between the numbers" books. She is another that I would highly recommend. I miss John Grisham's fiction books. I read the first nonfiction book and didn't care for it at all! There were too many characters and I felt like there would be a test at the end. If I find an author that I like I tend to read everything by that author before moving on. Kind of OCD, I know.

Any recommendations?

Happy Hump Day.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Gotta love 4 day work weeks!
2. Zac wanted everyone to know that he made 100 on his spelling test last week. We are so happy!
3. Check out Klancy's blog to see pictures of the Wii challenge that we had in the Crowell family last weekend. Zac talked A LOT of trash even when he was losing. He has so much Armor attitude in that little body!
4.. Trae started day care this week. Grandma said he did well on Monday and decided he would go back today. (I don't think he has much of an opinion yet, but I'm sure he will develop one.)
5. I am trying to take more pictures with my new camera. It's actually almost a year old now but I am just now trying to figure out all the features.
6. Baseball sign ups are in a couple of weeks and we are still playing basketball! Ronnie is coaching Zac this year. That alone should be worth the price of admission. They are so much alike!
7. Speaking of basketball, both boys had quite a cheering session at last night's games. Ronnie and I, both sets of grandparents and Uncle Tim. Several of Zac's friend's parents stayed to cheer on Justin also. The boys want to thank all that were in attendance!
8. Zac has an appointment to get his sight retested next week. He flunked the screening they give at school. I'm not sure if he has bad eyesight or if he just wasn't in the mood to have his eyes checked. Remember this is the kid who ended up in the remedial reading class because he refused to take the letter recognition test even though he knew his alphabet.
9. I taught class for 3 new hires today that I didn't know were going to be there until this morning. Talk about having to think on your feet!
10. Ten is a lot! (I know that's cheating. Oh well deal with it.)

Happy Tuesday all.

Winter

Even though we didn't get the snow forecasted this weekend, it was extremely cold! We did however get some snow last Tuesday and here are some pics of the boys with the blizzard of 2008 (ha!).

Keeping with the cold weather, the boys went ice skating yesterday. It was Zac's first time ever and he did amazing. It was Justin's second time and he did pretty well. He was nervous about falling so he was kind of stiff. The good news is that no one broke any bones!

The boys are out of school today and I'm off from work so we are cleaning house and relaxing. They both have basketball games tonight. The actually follow each other at West Morgan tonight! Yeah for easy scheduling!

Flashback Friday

I miss the bowl cut!! These are from Christmas 2004. Time flies!

Stuff

Most of you know that I am allergic to a lot of things!! I have had to use fragrance free items since I was a freshman in high school. Back then (boy does that make me sound old!) there weren't many products to choose from. But lately I have found a couple of great ones that I wanted to pass along. And get this, they are both store brands!

I have told several people about the fragrance free Kroger brand laundry detergent. You get 100 oz for $2.18--regular price. Sometimes they run it on sale for $1.99!! It is on the bottom shelf with a blue lid. Before that discovery I used the Purex brand and it was only about 64oz for around $3.50. I LOOOVE a bargain!My latest discovery is the target brand fabric softener sheets that are fragrance free. They are great. I previously used Bounce Free and for the same size box target is almost half the price! Now if I could just find a store brand of OxyClean that worked as well!

On a side note, Ronnie doesn't like to buy store brands. He doesn't think that the quality is as good. When you grow up with a large family like I did and your parents were a police officer and a teacher you learn to look for bargains! Although money isn't as tight as it has been before, I still love bargains. I would much rather spend my money on fun stuff than fragrance free laundry products.

It snowed yesterday and I took some pictures of the boys playing in the yard. I will try to post those tomorrow. However, the really funny part was Sassie. I should have taken a video of her barking at the snowballs that Zac had put on the porch to save. She would bark at it and then nudge it with her nose and bark again.

Justin wore a dress shirt, his very best jeans, and his wallabies to school this morning. He also had his hair brushed before being told to. I didn't ask, but Ronnie and I both suspect there is a 4th grade girl that he is trying to impress.

It's almost Friday!!

Wordless Wednesday/Guitar Lessons

Ten on Tuesday

1. Zac had his first basketball game of the year on Saturday in Priceville. Zac's team won 26 to 2! Here are a few pics:





2. Bynum turned 2 on January 2nd and we went to his party on Saturday also. Sorry I don't have any pictures (my battery was low) but he didn't change much in the week since the Christmas pictures below were taken. He got a lot of presents and really enjoyed all of his haul.

3. We ended up Saturday with a visit from Kari and Trae. Uncle Ronnie held the baby while the rest of us played Wii.
4. Justin had a basketball game in Eva last night and it was tough! (Again no pics, forgot to take the camera) Justin's team won 21 to 11 and Justin had a good game. But the refs weren't calling any fouls on anybody and it turned into basically a street fight on the basketball court. One kid on the other team was kicking and tripping everyone around and Justin ended up skidding face first down the basketball court at one point. Needless to say I jumped up and was yelling about the #3 who was kicking everyone. It's a good thing Justin's grandma or papaw weren't there to see all that! As Zac would say "that's just rendiculious isn't mama!"

5. Zac has a game tonight at West Morgan. He is excited about his first home game!

6. Ronnie has been working a lot of time at an off duty security job so we haven't seen much of him lately. Last week we saw him on Tuesday and then the next time we saw him was Friday night. Don't get me wrong, he came home and all but we were already in bed and he would be gone again before we woke up. This job should only last another month or so but then baseball starts.....so it goes!

7. I tried a new recipe for New Year's Day. It is called Cream Cheese Cherry Vanilla Pound Cake and it is good!!! I even got a marriage proposal out of it, but it's just not the same when it comes from your brother-in-law!

8. The above recipe calls for one vanilla bean. Well after a trip to Walmart I was the proud owner of 2 vanilla beans fo $7.88!! I told Ronnie that we should go into the vanilla bean growing business.

9. I am trying to be a more positive person at work since I believe that an attitude (be it positive or negative) is catching. Some days are easier than others!

10. I had to fill up with gas this morning. I so love my new car on days fill up days! I don't miss the SUV at all!

Happy Tuesday!!