Well, it has been an exciting weekend of birthday parties, new tenants, the park, company, kids leaving, hospital visits, kids throwing up, school, and whatever else I have forgotten to mention. I am somewhat glad to be going back to work. Katie has left for Illinois with mom, she has been awaiting trip with anticipation for quite sometime. Bethany was throwing up last night, and Tricia was in the hospital all yesterday morning with lymph node infections. I had an mri done Friday morning.........I have a dislocated disk in my neck. I moved in four new tenants over Friday and Saturday; one more to move in today. Eric had the blowout birthday party at his aunt Becky's with a moonwalk out in the backyard..........I spent the majority of the party in the moonwalk with the kids. Took the kids to the park yesterday morning after Tricia's hospital visit so she could get some sleep; we then went and got ice cream...................of which Bethy dropped hers on the back deck when we got home; so I proceeded to give her mine............of which she dropped on the ground as well. Eric had friends over most of the day yesterday, and the girls where in and out of the house all weekend. Kara's boyfriend had a lung collapse and is now in the hospital.......I think that happened after he left here Friday. Staurday after the big Birthday party we went to Jesus's birthday bar-b-que and then to the 6:30 Maple House meeting; 7 celebrants, an hour and a half long, packed house, and virtually no air conditioning. Eric found a tick on his chest yesterday morning.....of which I promptly removed.
I did have quite a funny event Friday night with Eric though. I was in bed with Tricia (she was asleep) and I was watching "the Wrestler" on the new flatscreen. Eric came in about half way through and informed me that I could sneak out of bed if I really wanted to........mom would never know.......in fact she wouldn't even wake up. I asked him where he thought we were gonna go and his reply "I don't know.......just sneak out of here. After a couple of minutes of prodding I finally informed him we should just stay in bed; he could play his new psp and I would watch the rest of the movie.

So today is take your child to work day. Eric will be riding with me to fix carwashes, Leandra will be staying with Tricia, Kara went to her mom's, and Katie opted to go to school. Eric rode with me last year and had a good time, even "fixed a carwash" if you ask him. Katie has a big dance at school tomorrow night, we went out and she picked out a dress earlier this week...........black of course. Amanda has been going to GED classes a few times a week and will hopefully stick with it. Tricia has a job interview tomorrow and will hopefully be starting work after Ella's eye surgery next week. I have spent my free time creating a webpage and email account for the apartments, and getting ads posted with the website link. That is about all that is new around here.

So, I often wonder what is running through the mind of a three year old when they are............oh say ......pouring 60 oz of bubbles out of the bubblewand bottle onto the carpet. or writing on my bedroom wall with a black permanent sharpie. I often ponder what is going through the mind our dog as he is chewing up the back of the brand new sofa we just purchased. Or why perhaps, a thirteen year old would continually clean out animal cages in the bathtub, washing all that nasty bedding down the bathtub drain.................only to clog it and get yelled at..............again and again and again and again. We will finish this later.

Why is it that living with eight people in a house the only people who think that the house needs to be picked up and cleaned on a daily basis are the adults? The older girls and Eric come in and immediately drop everything in the front living room and then proceed to the kitchen to destroy it and leave it in a wreckage. Bethany believes that her toys only need to stay in her room at night and then they all need to be scattered everywhere during the day. The part I love the most is that it never fails that Friday evening they all expect their allowance for "helping around the house". This is just madness! I just needed to vent a little.

Can you say MENTAL HEALTH DAY!

I will make this short and sweet..........I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sick of homework it is about to drive me crazy. That's about all I do...or so it seems. I seriously do not think they realize the ramifications of all this paperwork. I honestly do not have time to do anything and it is driving me crazy......and I am beginning to fear for my sanity. And my only thought is that this better be worth it in the long run or I am going to be highly upset......to put it mildly. But that's enough about that boring subject. Ella is doing well, she is outgrowing her clothes and is cute as ever. The rest of the girls and Eric are doing well, and I think Tricia is fed up with dr. and dentist appointments; I know I would be.....it seems like she is taking someone to an appointment daily. Since getting rid of Lucky we have brought a new edition to the family; a miniture pincher pup. We all felt so bad about letting Lucky go (he was adopted out the same dy though) I had to do something. Katie and Ali are attempting to convince Tricia and I that Katie should be going down with G-Goodie to Chandra's. And that's all I have time for this morning.