Happy 50th Birthday

Today, my DH turns 50. Everyone keeps telling me how I am married to an old man. I can see it, but I still the wonderful man that I married 11 1/2 years ago.

Our children love him so much that they ask him daily if he has to work, because they don't understand his work schedule and they miss him.

This year, he had to get glasses for the first time. They are just readers and eventually he will need to get bifocals, but right now he just needs the readers. But he is resistent to wearing them. He still sits and reads his paper without the glasses.

This year, I have noticed that he is starting to move a little slower. But he is still moving and helping our middle DD learn how to ride her bike. Middle DD and I butt heads, the reason, when I tell her to do something she refuses to listen to me. So where possible I let him work with her, she listens to him. But I also point out to him that this child is most like his mother! I see that more everyday. In fact, I took food to my mil, when I went to visit her at the nursing home and she screwed up her face just like middle DD and refused to eat it at all! "I don't like it!" she wailed. Wow, just like my DD.

This year, I have noticed more gray in his hair. But he is still very handsome.

This year, has been another good year with my wonderful, loving husband.

Happy 50th Birthday, Honey. I love you.

Warning....71 days until Christmas

Just saying! If you are doing a hand-made Christmas you better get to work. I am right there with you.

Trick or Treating with the Dinosaurs

We have Kings Island Passes and go often enough that we are making out really well. We take the kids, ride some rides and play in water (when the water park side is open). We also go to their Halloween celebration. In previous years it has been in a section that was open to the public and free.

This year, they moved the stuff into the area where we had to pay to get in. They called it Trick or Treating with the Dinosaurs. They built this area with animatronic Dinosaurs and charged $5 for people to get in. It is worth the money, but is an area that one trip through is enough. I was really upset that they were taking advantage that way. So I took a bag for the candy and apples also. Granted most would be sent away to nephew and I ate the apple (good apple). But it seemed that they were holding it hostage because they weren't able to generate the revenue to make back what it cost to build this area.

It seems that people went in once and that was all they needed because you walk around and once you have seen it, you've seen it. It doesn't change. It is too big to change it around every other month or every other week to make it interesting. So people came through or just went to COSI (which also had a animatronic dinosaur exhibit and was free to anyone holding a museum pass). Or they saw a similar exhibit at Cincinnati Museum of Natural History exhibit. Very interesting and free. So why would they go through more than once when they could see it free in other places.

So where I would have taken the girls to Kings Island at least 4 times before Halloween, this year we will only go once. Where I would have bought them something special on the way out of the park, I didn't that money went towards the Dinosaur Exhibit.

Will we go to the exhibit again next year? No, definitely not. We saw it. I took photos, it will be the same dinosaurs again next year, don't need to see them again.

Sorry Kings Island, but you just didn't research this as well as you could have. Someone sold you a bill of goods about how Dinosaurs are a draw and people would pay to see them, but that just was not the case. Why pay when it is free other places?

Maybe over the winter they will do something with that area or put in something else. Who knows, but this was just not a paying concern for them.

79 Days Until Christmas

For the past couple of days, I have not had time to touch needles! I have been either ferrying kids around to doctors (just sit down and then get called back) or working in the schools on projects for the classrooms. I also spent 1 and 1/2 hours chasing my cat through my yard and my neighbors yard, trying to get him back into our house. Rotten cat. He escaped again...his name: Houdini.

My middle DD has a UTI and as a result I am exhausted from getting up about every hour to make sure she gets to the bathroom (so she doesn't have an accident).

I also had to take my DDs to the shoe store. All of them needed new shoes, because their shoes were either too small (2 out of 3) or falling off their feet (1 out of 3). That was a very expensive trip to the store.

My DDs want to go to a park to play, ride their bikes (and people in my neighborhood...not all, just some) would rather run the kids down than slow down. They also want to go hiking. This is going to be a very busy weekend with me trying to get the girls through their homework. Get them out of the house (what can I say the weather is so very nice right now) and to Kings Island before they close for the season to see the Halloween stuff they have.

I am hoping that real soon, I get some semblance of life back where I can sit and knit a little, just a little. We'll see. Wish me luck, because I have looked at my to do list for Christmas and soon I will be feeling extreme pressure to finish.

It doesn't help that my dishwasher is still broken and I am still waiting for them to fix it (oh by the way, the latch to the dishwasher is now broken.....it broke on the repairman!). Time to do some dishes, get shoes on and go to school and help some little guy learn to read. Woo Hoo.

81 Days until Christmas

Really, it is getting so very close. I have so much to do in that time. I didn't need the extras. My middle DD has a UTI. A very bad UTI. 8 year olds are not supposed to have UTI's that bad. Then the pharmacy gave us the wrong drugs. I caught that or it would have been an overdose for her. To take things and go over the top....my dishwasher broke. The buttons stopped working. Called in repairman, he replaced that part. 2 days later, it doesn't work at all! Nothing, nada. Handwashing 3 sets of meal dishes a day. That does not include all the cups that my DDs and DH use. They get a new glass for every drink. So I have many, many sets of dishes to wash throughout a day.

To make sure that my middle DD gets better, I have set my phone alarm to go off every hour, so I can get her to the bathroom. Otherwise, she would pee in bed and then I would have to clean her and the bed up in the middle of the night. Still trying to decide which is worse. Getting up every hour or letting her just pee in bed (remember UTI).

The repairman is here now trying to figure out what is broken on the dishwasher to make it not work. He says he is going to order the parts needed to fix the broken dishwasher, I think this is obstinancy on his part because he installed the part that is broken.

I am still plogging along on the Christmas gifts. I had to take a break on them to make something special for a little girl (who goes to same school that my oldest DD goes to) and her father (diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease). I made them both a little pocket purse with a prayer square and a cross attached for them to keep with them. I gave this to the pastor (who lives 2 doors down from me) and he is going to bless them. Then they were going to give it to the woman who works at the school with the little girl. Then we are going to see what else we can put together for all the family. But I am uncertain. I have so much to make yet for Christmas.

Scarves, hats, afghans, more and more and more. But I have 81 days.

Also, Oct 16 is DH's birthday. He is going to be 50! So we are working on the plans for that special day celebration.