A soapbox I could so easily get on . . .

A Quote Worth Repeating

"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children."

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer


but I won't, at least not today.

Wanna come out and play?

It should take 8 minutes.

Easy as pie.

1. What time is it? 3:15

2. Name as it appears on you Birth Certificate? Stormie M.S.

3. Any nicknames? yeah, like I need one with my original first name!

4. Parent's names? Valerie & Robert

5. Number of candles on your last birthday cake? Had I had a cake, there would have been 32 but my husband seems to think that since he doesn't like celebrating his bday I must not want to celebrate mine!

6. Date that you regularly blow them out? July 17

7. Pets? none -3 kids and a husband who has the energy for pets!

8. Favorite animal(s)? dogs, horses

9. How much do you love your job? enough to have been here 5 years

11. Birthplace? Oklahoma

12. Favorite vacation spot? Colorado, Mexico & just about anywhere on the east coast

13. Any nicknames? again, I don't need one - really

14. Stolen any traffic signs? does it count if I stayed in the car while they pulled it out of the ground?

15. Ever been in a car accident? yep

16. Croutons or Bacon bits? Both

17. 2 Door or 4 Door car? minivan - had to have the room

19. Salad Dressing? ranch

20. Favorite Pie? pecan

21. Favorite Number? 7

22. Favorite Movie? Cold Mountain, Troy, Tommy Boy and many others

23. Favorite Color? gray/blue

24. LEAST Favorite Holiday? Halloween

25. Favorite Food? just about anything Italian

26. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

27. Favorite brand of body soap? ivory

28. Favorite TV show? Gilmore Girls, Lost, CSI, Without a Trace, Grey's Anatomy

29. Favorite toothpaste? Aquafresh sensitive

30. Most recently read book? Apollyon from the Left Behind series (wonderful series)

31. Perfume/Cologne? Realities & Eternity

32. Favorite Smell? certain cigars, baby right after a bath, cookies baking that have almond extract

33. What do you do to relax? read, play with my kids

34. Favorite Fast Food? Backyard Burger

35. When was your last hospital visit? 12/2005 (had a baby!!)

36. How many times did you fail your driver's license test? Amazingly enough, none

37. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? oy, do I really have to think about that one!

38. What do you do when you are bored? things like this

39. Furthermost place you sent this message? not sending it, posting

40. Who will respond the fastest? couldn't say

41. What time is it now? 3:29

The theory is that you will learn alot of little known facts about your friends.

So come one, come all, play this game, and let me know you did so I can read your!!

Have a nice weekend!

Ready or not here I come!

Well, Kael turned 3 months old the 28th! It has flown by. The little turd has been turning himself over from his back to his stomach for a couple of weeks now and I felt it was kind of early for him to be doing this, but since it's been so long I thought maybe I'd just forgotten. And several people expressed surprise at him doing this, but still. So today I am reading one of those baby updates from BabyWeekly and it is talking about things my baby should be doing at 13 weeks and it says,

This strengthens the muscles he or she will need to roll over, which could happen any time. While babies often roll from tummy to back first, doing it the other way is perfectly normal, too. However, it may take your baby until he or she is about 5 or 6 months to roll from back to tummy, because that trick requires stronger neck and arm muscles.

ok, mine is apparently backwards, because he started with the back to the belly! lol and he's been doing it for a while rather than anytime now. I hope this doesn't mean everything will come early. Since he's my last baby I want him to take his time and not grow to quickly. I know that sounds silly and selfish, but hey I get to here! The girls just went to fast for me and now they act so grown up.

My babies (the girls) are just killing me, because they aren't babies anymore. Katlynn is 10, almost eleven, and Kierst will be 7 next month and they both carry on like they are older. The thought of puberty hitting our house is indeed a scary one. Katlynn has always been extremely independent, since she was a baby, but here in the last six months or so she has hit that preteen stage in which I know very little and of course she has all the answers. *Oh the fun that can be*

I actually wrote this the other day, but I'll post it now anyway.

Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!

Jeez, the am came early today! And I am out of creamer at home so there was no coffee to be had because, well I just can't stomach the stuff without my creamer! Now I'm thinking I should've stopped before I got here and made do with cappacino!

My sweet little boy that has been sleeping in his own crib for a few weeks now has suddenly decided he likes snuggling up to me in my bed rather than going it alone in his! Oh crap! I know I should stop this early, but when you're tired and you know how early you have to get up sometimes it's just easier to let them sleep where you know you can sleep uninterrupted for awhile. However, our 6 yr old only recently started sleeping in her bed. She has just always either slept in our bed or in the living room, so for now my quandary is 'how to get him to sleep soundly in his crib rather than our bed and whether or not it's really a big deal'.

Well it's now much later in the day and I never did get that Coffee! I did however cave and get some M&M's! Had to have 'em!

I read my sitter's blog earlier and discovered she's drunk on cold medicine and all the bitsy's are being cared for by her friends 'duct tape and cheerios'!! I told her not to give mine any cheerios he might choke.

I know I'm all over the place today, I've had this open and just come back to it randomly. So your getting a bit of this and that and not a continuous thought process.

I have come to the conclusion that I was apparently certifiable when I used to buy shoes. Why, you ask. Lemme tell you. I like shoes, my husband says I'm obsessed with them, but hey potato/patoto - anyway I have an abundance of shoes but they all have REALLY high heels. I mean yeah there extremely cute but come on, after wearing flat shoes during my pregnancy it's like learning to walk again! And my feet are screaming "hey idiot take these things off of me"! So I have approximately one (1) pair of dress shoes that don't involve an inch in half worth of heel. When I mentioned to my husband the other day that I needed to buy new shoes without heels, the eyes rolled and there was no verbal response. lol

I guess I will finish this for now, it's almost time to go home. . . . . . . .

Need a weather update?

My boss and I were just talking and he asked me if it was supposed to rain tomorrow and it reminded me of my 6 yr old. This is due to the fact that the only time I know what the weather will be like tomorrow is when she mentions it. Odd I know. Many months ago, during our evening of trying to get things ready for morning, I asked her if she had her clothes laid out and

her: "yes, I have my green curious george shirt, jean skirt and panties"
me: "will you be warm enough?

To this I received a nice sigh followed by

her: "Mom, it's going to be 74 degrees out tomorrow and sunny." *With that 'aren't you the mom' look*

While laughing I wondered aloud how she knew this, and was greeted with another 'aren't you the mom' look when she informed me that that's what the weatherman had said this morning on the news.

I personally have found it very amusing that at 6 she stops what she's doing to listen to the weather so that she knows what she can wear to school!

It's Monday. Enough said.

A list of things I need to do soon. . . .

• go to the grocery store (my frig is so empty I actually cleaned it -it was gross- now it's shiny on the inside!)
• go to walmart - we're down to very like in the cleaning supplies, tp, etc. it's not looking good!
• buy my dad a bday gift & card - even though he said he just wants to skip his bday!
• make cupcakes for my 6 yr old's class
• clean the baseboards in my house (not likely to happen anytime to soon!)
• paint the little kids' room, our bedroom, the living room and our bathroom
• clean the ceiling fan in our room
• etc., etc., etc.,

real excitement here, huh folks!!

Hey I've gotta "you might be a redneck if. . ."

Ok, I was coming to a stop at a light and I glanced at the vehicle in front of me that was stopped and did a double take! On the ball hitch was a deer in a standing position so that you could see it's belly and the belly had a bullseye target on it and the middle blinked!! So you think they fit the redneck catagory? OMG!

And this is a good one, I can't hardly tell it without crying for laughing so hard, oh, and I'm fairly sure my dad won't appreciate me sharing it! oh well, what he doesn't know.....

Him and a friend went to a concert in OKC (I can't remember who they saw) and they got a room across the street from the concert so that they could walk and there would be no drinking and driving involved. It was at a very nice hotel. So before they go to the concert they get pizza to eat and bring the leftovers back to the room to eat later. So they go to the concert and get back to the room, his friend is in the bathroom and dad decides to heat up the pizza so he opens the doors on the armoire that he had looked at earlier that had a microwave and stuff, and was going to put his pizza in the microwave only the door wouldn't open, so he puts the pizza in and tries and tries to start it, so his friend comes out and tries too. Before (thankfully, I guess) they call downstairs to ask how to start the microwave it dawns on him that he's seen one of these before. It was on the cruise ship in the closet. Yeah, the closet because it was a SAFE not a microwave!!!

Yep, that's my dad and my moms a blonde -

Enough. Said.

Well maybe we should just push that on down the page~~~~

I looked back at this after having a very uplifting conversation with a friend on IM {which I thought about posting, but well I don't think I will for now} and after she made me feel better I realized what a downer that post is and jeez, could I be a little whinier!!!

And since I didn't want to leave you with that all weekend I thought I'd get my tush over here and post away.

As you may or may not have noticed I have learned how to mess with the html. shut up. quit laughing. and I must say I could easily get carried away. Can someone tell me how to make it to where you have the word pull up an extended post. Like say at the bottom of your post you would put Read more and it would be underlined and when you click on it it would pull up your extended post. And where exactly should you put a mood indicator? The template or each individual post. I put it in the template, but then it went on every post and when you changed it it changed all of them.

Oh and I am trying to learn how to add some sort of tabs to but a photo blog and stuff. And I having been looking for a different template one that fits me better.

Well I'm heading for that mess we call home - going to try and cook something for the masses, fold some laundry so you can actually sit on the loveseat, and clean out the frig (it's gross) - Have a good weekend!

Out on a limb, apparently

The following post is a last vestige of an illuminating spoken communication (It could by no means be called a conversation, that would imply more than one participant was talking) that I need to get out of my system. More plainly put it can be considered a WTF post! So feel free to skip my ravings and move on to more coherent posts!

And I should probably mention that I know this is one sided and completely out of context . . . .

Lets say that you are quite upset with someone very close to you. Over a significant period of time they have developed certain habits and ways of dealing with things that you cannot in good conscience (oh screw good conscience, it's just unacceptable) ignore and you, on more than one occasion have expressed your feelings about this behavior and the need for something to be done about it. Promises to do something and apologies are made and you move on hoping for change, only to go a few months and find yourselves in the same spot having no surprise a shocking case of deja vu. So, moving on, this pattern has repeated itself many times {sidenote: keep in mind there is a laundry list of things that this person does pretty much daily that would make most people mad and yet I just let it go} and you have just had enough and have been upset for days, but due to timing and that persons unavailability to you, you have not been able to explain what is on your mind. And then at a really crappy time, oh lets say midnight when you've been woken up, the person decides to talk about why you are mad. Saying, I know you are mad, but you haven't given up have you and you reply that you are getting worn out by it. Then they continue on to how they know why you are mad, don't blame you for being mad, tell you that you have every right to be mad etc. and then stop {this is the WTF part} these words come out:

him: "You know you really don't have any reason to be any more tired of me than I have been of you."

him: "But, I don't want to argue with you and I have been wrong, blah, blah, blah"

It got hard to follow at that point, because it was sinking in that what he had been apologizing for were the things that I can deal with, the things that I have come to expect and overlook. ~You know the things that you decide you can live with because they'll work themselves out and they aren't worth bickering over continually.~ With this realization sinking in I tried to get out that he was confused and give an accurate account of those things that were making me upset, but to no avail he didn't hear me.
I guess I'm just wondering how I can be so far out here on this limb reaching in and he's reaching in the wrong direction to pull me back! Oh, and not to mention WHO stops in the middle of an apology to rationalize their behavior by blaming the person they are apologizing to and accepting guilt. Is it just me or does that totally negate the apology?!

I know, I know, this post makes no sense, the only clear thing is who I'm irritated with. Anyway, just had to let it out so that maybe it would quit festering.

Stress Test #2

LIFE STRESS SCORES
• 0-149 Low susceptibility to stress-related illness
• 150-299 Medium susceptibility to stress-related illness. Learn and practice relaxation and stress management skills and a healthy well life style.
• 300 and over High susceptibility to stress-related illnessDaily practice of relaxation skills is very important for your wellness. Take care of it now before a serious illness erupts or an affliction becomes worse.

Your Overall Stress score is: 595

This scale shows the kind of life pressure that you are facing. Depending on your coping skills or the lack thereof, this scale can predict the likelihood that you will fall victim to a stress related illness. The illness could be mild - frequent tension headaches, acid indigestion, loss of sleep to very serious illness like ulcers, cancer, migraines and the like.

Stressed . . . Who Me?

I was reading the Mommy Blog and came across a link to a stress test - ok, well two stress tests and so of course I had to take them. So since the results were surprising not surprising I thought I'd share them here.

Below 150 - 35% chance of illness or accident within 2 years
Between 150 - 300 - 51% chance of illness or accident
Over 300 - 80% chance of illness or accident

Your Score: 564

You can go here to take the test yourself. Go on it's painful enlightening, sort of.

I'll post the other one tomorrow.

Technology is so amazing!

Just thought I'd announce (in case you don't scroll down and see it!) that I decided to start an online photo album. There's a photo stream on the left. I was about to post more photos and thought it would make more sense to do it that way. Now if I could just figure out how to underline a word and have the photo pop up . . . .

Go figure

I have finished a copious amount of work today and yet my desk still has stack upon stack of things 'to do'....... aren't you generally supposed to feel something other than tired when you get so much accomplished or is that just an untruth I can't seem to learn.

My angel boy~

Here is one of the newborn pics, I promised I would put up. I absolutely love this picture, he is around an hour old.

Oh the questions I have to answer!

First I must say that I CANNOT believe I forgot to post this earlier!~

Alright, picture this, it is oh I don't know 45 minutes after I had Kael and everyone is in the room oohing and ahhhhing and holding him and such. And my 6 yr old is sitting on the bed next to me and her big sister is standing behind her and I'm talking with several people at once and here's the conversation that ensued . . .

unknown: Did you have to have very many stitches? [why this is thought to be an appropriate question I will never understand, and yet here I am putting up for everyone to hear!]
me: no, none
unknown: blah, blah, blah
6yr old: Momma, if you didn't have stitches how did you get him out?
10yr old: Yeah, mom? *evil grin*

Alrighty then. So I should have seen that one coming. Her question was followed with an earth shattering quiet while everyone waited on my reply.

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring, etc. etc.

This is what my 6 year old was singing repeatedly on the way from the sitters to her school. One day we were going somewhere and it was raining and she sang that something like three or four times and lo and behold the rain stopped. Not tapered off, or lightened up, but stopped and the sun came out. So of course she fully believed that she had total control over stopping the rain. And still apparently thinks that she can at will! However, my nerves can only handle this song for a couple of miles, so I interrupt her and explain that we need the rain so that the burn ban can be lifted. That leads to the explanation of what a burn ban is:

me: Well when we haven't had enough rain or moisture, they issue a burn ban.
her: what's that?
me: A burn ban is when you can't burn anything, like charcoal.
her: What's that?
me: Charcoal? you know for grilling.
her: oh, [giggles] duh.
her: So you can't grill?
me: nope.
her: that stinks.
me: yep, you wanna get a donut?

and the rain song was forgotten, cuz mommy wants to grill! To just tell her to stop singing the rain won't stop because you sing a song, doesn't work. Her sister tried that one day and the argument was on. She's that way with most things though, you have to give her an acceptable reason why something should be done or sheesh, she can be STUBBORN!

Yesterday I had the baby in the living room floor laying on his boppy . He likes to lay on it facing up, and he scooches himself over the pillow to where his back is arched and the back of his head touching the floor. It’s pretty comical to see and I was fixing him every time putting him back to normal, but he just does it again and seems to be very content so anyway. . . . yesterday he was lying like that happy as could be and I told his sister to keep an eye on him while I cycled the laundry. A few minutes later she comes running hollering, “Momma, he flipped over!” My first thought was oh crap, where did I have him! And when it dawned on me that he was in the floor on his boppy I couldn’t figure out what she meant as I walked into the living room. So there the little stink is laying on the other side of the boppy, on his belly, looking STUNNED. I guess he just kept pushing on the floor with his feet until he somehow flipped himself over! Yeah, the kid is 11 weeks! Did I mention he is already rolling himself from his back to his side to his stomach!

And since I have carried on about the other two I’ll just continue along to my third child. She is in fifth grade and they had a science fair a couple of weeks ago. They had a month in a half, I think, to prepare their science project. The teacher gave them an outline. She did “Which is lightest? Rock, Sand, Chat or Dirt.” She did a bang up job! She got 3rd place for her class, which I thought was great. I was so excited for her, she tends to be quite introverted and a wee bit dramatic [the other daughter is a full fledged DRAMA.QUEEN.] so I was afraid she would be crushed if she didn’t get a place ribbon rather than a participant ribbon. She did work hard on it, her dad and I helped her, but only with the stuff she couldn’t do on her own. She got fairly aggravated {ok, down right pissed} a couple of times because, in her words, “you aren’t helping me at all!” *storms off rolling eyes and huffing* -

I can’t wait til she’s a teenager!

*dripping with sarcasm*

Will it ever end?

The irritation I mean.

So last night my @$#%^ hubby falls asleep on the couch early (no big deal) and so after cleaning the kitchen getting the kids to bed and watching the news I go to bed around 10:15 or so. The baby is sleeping peacefully in his crib (usually til around 2am) and kierst was sleeping in her bed (a rarity until a couple of weeks ago). Oh and just to be clear on what a freak I am I have a monitor in their room [they share] and anyone who has been to our house knows how small it is, but I want to be able to hear him breathe and he won't sleep in the bassinet anymore! So anyhoo, I'm sleeping right and for whatever reason I begin hearing questions from the pain in the ass that has decided to get up and come to bed sometime between 10:30 and 2 and play 20 questions! It went something like this [however I was partially asleep so, well you know]:

him: Where's the baby?
me: In his bed.
him: Where's kiersten?
me: In her bed.
him: Where's Justin? (kierst's friend that was supposed to sleep over)
me: He went home.
him: Why?
me: Kiersten went to bed.
him: grumbly something or other I don't remember
me: silent
him: Are you sleeping?
me: YEAH!

Ok, at what point do you think it should've become apparent that I was SLEEPING - maybe before he asked me a lot of unnecessary questions. I mean really do you see anything in that exchange that would warrant waking someone up?
And I'm not so gungho on friendliness when I get woke up for something assanine!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's an Irish Blessing for you!

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields and,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

And the Bragging continues . . . .

Here is a pic of my oldest daughter, I'm terrible this is the most recent pic I have [other than snapshots] and it was her fall basketball pic! It turned out so good though!





And here is my youngest daughter, this is her fall school pic, again, bad mom who needs to have portraits done very soon!!!

And so it goes. . . .

My 6 year old and I were talking on Saturday while driving somewhere and she was telling me about the AR trip her class had gone on the previous day. I asked her if everyone in the class had gotten to go and she said that they all had gotten to go except one little boy. This is the conversation that ensued:

her: Everyone but Levi.
me: why didn’t Levi get to go?
her: He told the teacher a lie or something.
me: What do you mean by that? (I’d like to point out that at this point I meant what did he lie about or what is the or something)
her: Well, momma, he was tellin’ the teacher somethin’ and he didn’t tell her the truth, what he said wasn’t true and so it was a lie and he didn’t get to go.

As she is finishing this sentence I look at her in the rearview and realize this isn’t sarcasm, she was contemplating the fact that she just had to explain what a lie was to her mother!!!

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!!!!!!!!

Well my last post was way to lengthy so this one I will just add photos and call it good. These pics like the bathtub one are taken from 6 weeks to 10weeks, I will have to try and get the newborn ones posted on Monday. I've had them with me everyday for a week and finally get to posting and I left them in the van! So hope you enjoy these as much as I do . . . . .

It's official - Maternity leave is over and real life has began again!!!!

Here I am once again. It's been ages so I have much catching up to do.

I didn't realize my last post was November 17th. The end of November and ALL of December was fairly busy, to say the least. We of course couldn't travel anywhere for Thanksgiving, since the baby seemed to want to come visit early. So we celebrated at our house with family. It was nice, I had to sit on a bar stool to cook because I wasn't supposed to be in my feet and I'm sure that was a sight! But dinner was had and football was watched and everyone was happy. Then came the dreaded (by most) day after Thanksgiving. I needed to go shopping, but hubby (& dr.) said that didn't fit into being off my feet so ..... hubby took my list and at 4:30 a.m. headed out with my dear sister-in-law to bring home the needed purchases! He was wonderful during the pregnancy, but those last two months he made major points!
So on to December.......I muddled through my three days a week at the office and worked until the 23rd. We had Christmas at our house, my mom and her significant other stayed the night and his dad and stepmom came over around 7:30ish. We opened many gifts made way to much breakfast food and all in all had a really wonderful morning!
Then came the day, the 27th I had my appointment and was at a 1 and having contractions regularly and all so he sent me over to be admitted - it took something like 2 and a half hours to get in a room they were so busy - they gave me some pill thing to induce the labor slowly, (slow my ---) and I had very strong very on top of each other contractions for many hours and I gave in to the nurse and she gave me 1/2 a dose of stadol(sp) and within the hour my contractions stayed as strong, but were steadily 4 minutes apart. The dr. had been previously told how well I was progressing after the pill time wore off so he ordered nothing else so I was in limbo (major discomfort) all night. Finally morning came and being at a 4 the drip was started. Things progressed from there (details I'm sure you don't want) and lets just say I'll never know how I had my first two children without any drugs!! the epidural was very helpful - except when it wore off while I was waiting on the dr. - that was when I realized how crazy not having anything for pain was!! Anyway, at 4:37 p.m. Kael Paul Cochran made his entrance! And oh what an entrance.......he wasn't breathing and had no pulse.....our WONDERFUL [who I could never properly thank or express the depths of my gratitude too] nurse Melissa took charge and bagged him, called a code and proceeded to make him better.....it was the longest 45 seconds (or however long) of my life, I don't think I've ever felt that kind of fear. But, God was there and we were blessed by getting to keep Kael. He began breathing and pinking up and all that good stuff, he did have a little triangle bruise around his mouth and nose from the bag but other than that he was perfect! He weighed 8lbs 8ozs and was 21 1/2 inches long. The nurses and the Dr. kept going on about him have an over abundance of hair, when he fully crowned the nurse said "he's got more hair than the dr.!" It was quite funny at the time. Well I guess that is enough of the details, probably more than you actually cared to know, but I could gush all day, if allowed.

I am now going to attempt to add some photos and hope all goes well.