The Greatest Feeling in the World

A couple of days this past week Eric delivered papers for my sister since she was really sick. That meant that Eric had to get up at 2:30 in the morning and spend a few hours out in the cold. I ABSOLUTELY hate sleeping alone. So on Friday morning, when Eric got up to do the route, I got up with him and crawled in bed with Tarren. It's warmer up stairs anyway. About an hour later, Caitrin woke up and crawled in bed with us, too. Just when we were settling back down and about to fall asleep, Trent came running up stairs because of a bad dream. Mind you, Tarren has a double size bed, not the biggest size, but doable for her. He managed to crawl in bed as well. So now there is an adult, 2 children and a toddler all in this bed. I didn't manage to go back to sleep, to much tossing and turning. But as I laid there, I thanked God for giving best thing in life... my kids. And they were all within arms reach, no greater feeling.

Welcome Home, Cleatus

(My batteries went dead in my camera, so I had to use Eric's phone. Sorry..not the best focus)

If you are a Football fan, you'll understand this post. On the Fox Network,when football is on, there is a transformer looking robot in the lower left hand corner that resembles a football player. He's pretty cool looking. Trent has been asking for this "thing" ever since football season started. I looked and looked for him and no such luck. So I asked a lady, Joycelyn, that I work with. We call her "Dex" since she can find dirt in a snow storm. She searched for this robot, and in a matter of minutes, she found him. This "thing" has a name. Cleatus. When I went to order him for Trent for Christmas, they were all out and I had to wait since they were back ordered. I waited patiently for Cleatus to make is debut into our home. Since he wasn't going to be here in time for Trent to open him, I had a picture laminated of Cleatus. Trent was stoked with just that. Bless his heart for being such a simple child. I had to explain to him that Cleatus was coming, just not until later. I think he forgot about him. Well, Monday he arrived. Eric wouldn't let me see him because he knew that I would want to open him and play with him before the boy could. I guess it was better that way. He's about 10 inches tall and weighs a ton. For the last couple of nights, Cleatus has slept with in arms reach of Trent. He carries the toy around like a toddler carries around a baby. It's kind of cute in a masculine way. ( I'm sure Trent will kill me when he's older for saying that)

**Smart Alick**

To start from the beginning... Eric had a 10 day mandatory lay off the week before Christmas up until New Years. In the course of that time, a good friend of ours, who does a paper route all the way up in Grangeville, wanted a day or two or three off so he could spend time with his family. So Eric graciously agreed to help him out. Besides, it was a little extra income coming in during the lay off. Eric delivered 3 days at Christmas and on New Years. Shawn told us he's pay us when he got paid from the Tribune. No big deal, right? Here's what our payment was.......

.......Two Lewiston Morning Tribune paper holder 85% full of PENNIES. I can't tell you if that's $2oo dollars or not. Those suckers are HEAVY! We dumped them out in hopes that there would be a few paper dollars in the mix. Yea... no. I am so not looking forward to taking this to the bank, I won't even be able to carry it in and I'm not going to a Coin-Star, they are going to charge me. But we got a bottle of Scotch out of the mix. I guess Shawn figures we need to be drunk enough to take something like that to the bank. I think I'll tell Eric next time Shawn asks, we need to demand CASH up front.

What can I say?

Well, Trent lost is other tooth. Sad to say about my own kid, but toothless kids look goofy and dorky. He is not exception to the rule. And his shaggy hair.... he won't let me get his hair cut. I know, who's the parent. But I feel that with little things like that, they can make their own decisions. When he's tired of it, and someone teases him about the way he looks, he might change his mind. You have to let them feel like they have some control. And a hair cut is not worth the fight. The only thing he's asked for is his hair to be thinned out. ( Did I mention that he wants an ear ring too?) Yea... Like I said... A dork....

Gappy

Over the Christmas break, Trent has been messing with his 2 top front teeth. There are both loose. He finally yanked out the one two nights ago. I was bugging the heck out of me. Just hanging there by a thread. My children have this thing were they like to pull their own teeth. When Tarren was this age, she had lost 8 teeth. This is Trent's third, and the fourth will follow, sometime this week, I'm sure. Funny thing is that we let the tooth soak over night to get all the yuckies off. I set the cup on the counter and pushed it way back. Well, Caitrin, the monkey that she is, at some point in time drank the water. When I went to pull the tooth out of the cup, there was no tooth, and the water level was way down. When I had asked Caitrin about drinking the water from said cup, her response was, "What? I was thirsty" Freaked out, not knowing what to do, I ran and woke up Eric. He just laughed, he said it wasn't going to hurt her if she had swallowed it, and he wasn't going to follow her around and "try to retrieve" the tooth. Unbeknown est to us, some one had pulled the tooth out and set it on the window ledge, we found it an hour later. I save of the kid's teeth, thankfully I now have that one. Since we don't do the Tooth Fairy (our religious decision), the kids know that the next paid day we go to the dollar store and get a few fun things. I think I might wait for that second one to pop out to save us a trip.

Conversations

Setting: Last night Caitrin was throwing a fit because I wouldn't let her lay down with gum in her mouth. It was bed time and I didn't want her to fall asleep with it. Needless to say she didn't like my decision, but I held firm. "No gum". She ended up continuing to throw a fit for the next 5 or so minutes. I told her that was it and I put her to bed. I wasn't going to deal with her attitude. So this morning when I woke her up to go to school, I sat her up on my lap.
Mommy: Morning Bug. Did you sleep well last night?
She just shook her head while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
Then she looked up at me with sad big blue eyes...and bottom lip out...
Caitrin: I adjusted my attitude for you mama.
Talk about heart breaking. At least I know she knows the meaning of attitude adjustment.

Introducing.....Silvia

Well here we go... taking a jump into the deep end of financial debt. Eric and I bought the newest car we've ever owned. A 2005 Ford Freestyle. We haven't had a car payment in 4 years and haven't financed a vehicle in almost 10 years. We were holding off trying to get our last 2 bills gone, but we got in an accident two days before Christmas with the good ol' Black Bronco, aka the Black Bitch. There was no damage sustained to our car, but the metal tin box did a number to the Kia mini van. The road conditions were bad, and the brakes didn't work to the capacity that they were suppose to. Eric was tired of not feeling "safe" on the road with her anymore, so we decided to call Dave Smith Motors in Kellogg and they hooked us up. We got a late start on Monday and headed up there at 1:30 in the afternoon. The winds were horrid, and the roads were good up until Worley. From there to Cd'A the roads weren't plowed. Of course I having anxiety attacks because we had to throw the beast into 4 wheel drive and how were we going to get back home with only a two wheel/front wheel drive CAR. When we finally got there, 3 1/2 hours later, everything went smoothly. They ended up giving us $1000 for our 1988 Bronco, can you believe it? Yea, we were surprised too. By 7 o'clock we were making our maiden voyage home. Luckily the plows had come out in the mean time and we had clear roads coming home. We arrived around 11pm. The kids can't seem to get enough of the car. It has a third row option, which will most likely be up at all times just to avoid any fighting for space. It has all the things that most people take advantage of: air conditioning, a cd player, power windows (that work), a heater (that works), power seats, tilt wheel steering, a blinker wand that doesn't' stick when you manipulate a turn. Needless to say we have gone with out for a while and we got an awesome car that now spoils us.