Counting down the days....

As you SHOULD know....Twilight the movie is released on Friday. Oh how I wish I could go. But since I am dragging my mom with me...I have to wait until I have someone to watch Madison. Sooooo I am going on Monday. I am soooo excited. FINALLY Edward!! Maybe not "MY" Edward....but Edward nonetheless.

So I am now counting down the days until Monday.

Only 6 more days.

Oh and April....Hands off...hes MINE :)

P is for.....

PARTY!

Today was Madison's very belated 10th Birthday Party. She never likes to have it in September because school is just starting and noone can ever come. So normally we do October. But October was way busy so November 2nd it was! Since it was Halloween weekend....we did the Halloween theme. What else?

We ended up with a total of 9 girls in our basement. Though it sounded more like the 25 she invited LOL. It was rather late notice for a party so I was pleased with the turnout. I hope you will indulge me in a LOT of pictures from the day! Please ignore the two different colors on the walls in the basement. It is a work in progress (Yes Claudia I am STILL painting and its now November lol). Now on to the pictures....

First lets show the decor I worked so hard at that the girls tore down in less than an hour lol

And of course her BFF Tori came early to hang out and have fun while they waited on guests. They used this time to play with the new Karaoke machine her dad got her for her birthday. I swear if I heard Alvin and the Chipmunks sing Witch Doctor one more time I might scream.

Now of course the next best thing to decorations is food! I went all out. It took many hours and killed my back. But alas the girls could have cared less. Except they did like the gummy rat on the cake. Go figure.

Here is her cake:

And I made Cheese Fingers. They look MUCH better in person. The picture doesn't do them justice. These little fellows took an eternity.

If we have fingers, we have to have toes. So we had Bloody Monster Toes. These weren't too hard to make and the kids seemed to enjoy them more than anything else. Well except the cake.

And apparently I am just seeking punishment. I decided to make popcorn hands. Another time consuming item. And would you believe I made 20? And after the party ended I still had 20.

This picture is a little hard to decipher. My mom made her famous New Years Eve Punch. Yes its non-alcoholic LOL. Well I made frozen hands to stick in the punch. You can sort of make it out here. The second hand, I am sorry to say, was amputated. He ended up looking like he was giving me the finger. I did stick the spare fingers in the punch though.

What's a party without games? The girls really enjoyed their games. The first game they played was keeping the balloon in the air. This was an impromptu game they started before my "official" games began. They had a blast with it. Maybe I should add it to future party games.

Well once my games started, we began with What Am I? I placed Halloween words on sticky notes on their backs and they had to walk around asking questions to try and guess what their word was. It took a nose dive after about 10 minutes. I realized they were getting bored when someone told someone else "Your name starts with an S, you are dead and you have no skin" Yea, that wasn't in the rules LOL

Now this game they had fun. We had a Candy Corn Relay race. They were in teams and had to carry candy corn in a spoon from one bag to another. The team with the most in their bag at the end of time won. They really got into this. You should have heard the screams and cheers going on.

By far the MOST popular game was Mummy Wrap. We had to play it several times. They divided into teams. One person was the mummy and the others had to wrap them from head to toe in toilet paper. The catch is they had to use ALL of the roll. The other catch that was unintentional was it was cheap toilet paper and kept tearing up LOL

Madison's personal game of choice was Freeze Dance. They had a really good time with this. I think they played it 4 times. I got quite a few pictures but in the interest of saving us both time, I am just sharing the one of Madison getting her groove on :)

Here are just some random shots from the party:

And of course singing Happy Birthday.

And a few of her opening presents:

Well folks that is it. And I swear after tonight I am changing next year. I'm gonna get a big empty room with some balloons, music and paper to tear down. I am going to sit out a cake, some chips and candy. And I am going to say go at it. LOL. It's funny how much we plan when really the kids have an idea all their own.

But the most important thing: They had FUN. At least judging from the laughing and screaming they had fun.

Thanks for sharing in my day :)

O is for.....

Opportunity.

It always seems like once an opportunity presents itself and then I get hopeful, something falls through and crushes it. They say when one door closes another one opens. Well I've been waiting on that dang open door for a very long time. Where is it?? I get so close and then, BAM, the door closes before I get through.

Don't worry I am not feeling sorry for myself. I know things will fall into place how they should. I've learned that much in my life. It just seems it never is the way I think it should be. Know what I mean?

So I am back in that long hallway of life. Full of closed doors. Just waiting on one to open. To stay open long enough for me to slip through it.

Wow I sound pathetic. Good news though. Tomorrow you can expect a long post all about Madison's very belated Birthday party. So it will be a more cheerful post.

N is for.....

Neighborhoods.

Do they really matter that much?

See I live in what I deem the "perfect" neighborhood. But I HATE my house. It's too small. It's ugly. It's falling apart. So I've been looking at houses.

Well we had found one I loved. Then we found one that was perfect. But I still loved the first one and half of that reason was the neighborhood. The other one was big and roomy and worth twice its price and had a huge yard and was just the perfect house. But I didn't feel "that feeling" about the area.

So it turns out the "Perfect" house is not available anymore.

Which is FINE with me. It was nice. But the other one just speaks to me. And I like the neighborhood. It's not where I live....but I can't afford where I live. Unless I stay in this too small falling apart ugly house. Which I will do if the perfect place doesn't happen.

Im rambling here aren't I?

I was stuck on N and then realized we'd spent the past few days analyzing neighborhoods and I realized I've become a neighborhood snob LOL

M is for.....

McDonald's.

This is my rant for the day.

Madison had cheerleading 30 minutes away tonight at 7 so we decided instead of trying to fix dinner in the whopping hour and a half we were home....we would take her out to McDonald's first.

Well first off it cost us 18 bucks for 2 adults and a child. For McDonald's??? I mean it isn't like we had sit down service or home cooked food. It's microwaved burgers and stale fries for crying out loud.

Which brings me to my next point. I ordered chicken selects, steering as far away from the disgusting burgers as I could....I wanted Wendy's or Taco Bell but was outvoted lol.....anyways....have you ever eated rubber? Because I think I did tonight. Yep rubber chicken.

For almost 6 bucks a person can I at least get recently nuked food?

Madison however enjoyed hers. I shoulda went with the Snack wrap too.

So there my friends, is my rant for tonight. Well one of them. We ordered her uniforms and stuff tonight and Oh. My. Word.

L is for.............

Love at first sight!

And it truly was. Going both ways.

This afternoon I found out someone was giving away a puppy. She is 9 months old and is a chihuahua/yorkie mix. Well I decided to get her for Madison. I didn't tell her where I was going because I wanted it to be a surprise. That it was! To say that she loved her instantly is an understatement. But what really surprised us was how quick the puppy took to Madison. Since arriving here she has been curled up with Madison and refusing to move. Doing homework was a chore LOL

So I'd like welcome our newest family member Sophie to our home. Here are some photos of her homecoming.

Did someone say surprise???

Sophie just a little scared....

She's more comfy here...

Attached at the hip...literally lol

I've found a new best friend....

K is for....

well someone knew I was stuck.

So Madison asks me if she can go to the park with one of her older friends from the neighborhood (remember the whole independence thing?). I say yes for 30 minutes. She says how about 40? I said 35. She said okay and off they went.

So she comes back and screams open the door.

Door gets opened and there on the porch stands my little rescuer with an adorable little kitten. She had found it at the park and wanted to bring it inside. She thought we could make found posters and post them around the neighborhood.

The kitten was obviously someone's pet. It was well cared for. It probably had just run over to the park. But Madison just KNEW she had to have this kitten. PLEASEEEEEEEEE mom. I'll make it sleep in my room mom. We can take it to the shelter.

But I couldn't say yes. We had to take it back to the park. Of course now I feel guilty and will probably go back later and see if it is still there.

I can't tell you how many times Madison has shown up at the house with neighbors pets saying we had to bring it inside because it was cold/wet etc. And we have a SMALL house and a LARGE dog and a cat.

So....it at least gave me something to write about that starts with K.

K is for Kitten.