Week 26:Marriage: Betting Someone Half Your Crap You'll Love Them Forever

Man, I kind of wish someone would take half my stuff and chuck it out the window. I have learned this week that we sure do have a lot of it. This is why it's good to move every couple of years, out with the old- in with the new. Unfortunately, I think I'll be keeping my husband- so I have to sort through it all. (It's unfortunate that I have to sort through all our stuff, not that I'm keeping Asa, of course)

I know this is a short week, as I posted a blog Thursday, but I'm going to be rather busy the rest of the week, and have fun things to report, so here we are. However, I'm slightly confused why I'm at week 26. I know I'm not the best at helping Calib with his fraction homework, evident by his waiting for Asa to get off the phone with the Fios people about switching over internet and TV to the new house without a lag (because God forbid we live without either!), instead of just asking me. What was my point? Oh right, 26 is half of 52- and it's not my half birthday yet. So, how did this occur? Have I been labeling wrong? Am I just ahead of the game? I'll have to research I suppose.

Well, since you just heard from me Thursday, I pretty much just have my weekend to share. It was a groupon-fabulous weekend. If you don't use Groupon, you totally should. It's a great way to do things in your area you may not have even known existed, at a hugely reduced cost. This weekend we went to the Xtreme Fun Center, and Swam with Manatees. Neither of these things are usually in our Entertainment Budget price range, but Groupon makes it work.

Friday, Calib came home with his run club t-shirt. Every kid gets a run card, with a punch each time they do a lap. Once they get to 125 laps, they get a t-shirt. Calib gets one every year, but it seems earlier and earlier each year. He was the first one in his class to get it this year, he said he knew of one other 5th grader who also got it on Friday, so he's on track for the coveted speedy otter award at the end of the year! I think he's going to pick up cross country the second he can in middle school. He's quite the awesome runner. I have no idea where he gets it from.

Friday was also Pirate Day for Hayden at school. I couldn't find my camera, so I have no picture, but he was pretty excited about wearing an eye patch and a bandanna to school. I guess they were celebrating Gasparilla at school. We are yet to get on the Gasparilla train (it's celebrated every year here in Tampa), but I keep thinking 'maybe next year.' It draws quite the crowd. Either way, it's a Pirate Festival- and apparently worthy of being celebrated in kindergarten classes.

Also, just a quick note to acknowledge the passing of a great TV Show. For five years, Asa and I faithfully watched Chuck together- Mondays, Sundays, Fridays- whatever random day NBC decided to stick this gem of a show. Friday night was the series finale, and oh boy did it ever deliver. If you've never seen the show, you are missing out. I'm choosing to believe Sarah got her memory back, her and Chuck lived happily ever after, and had lots of spy babies. The End.

Saturday Morning we got up and had breakfast before heading up to Crystal River. It is about an hour north from here. And, shout to to my mom and grandma for my gps because it would have been REALLY hard to find without it. We went to the end of this little tiny road, and there, on the river, was a tiny cute little shack with a dock and a bunch of wet suits and flippers hanging from some outside racks. We had to get the swim in before Hayden turned 6, because 5 and under were free for this excursion. The guy happily took our groupon, which didn't include the tax, so we did have to shell out $3.49 cents. Pretty awesome. The groupon included our rental gear, so he hooked us all up with wet suits, googles, snorkels and flippers. We went to put on our wet suits, and usually I wouldn't be seen in anything that snug, but they are actually more forgiving than you would imagine. Not that I let anyone take a full body picture of me in mine though. The boys were ADORABLE in there's though. We were assigned to Mick's boat, with another family of four- but their kids were teenagers. Mick started off the boat and off we went.

So, anyone in Florida knows about the Manatees coming in to warmer water when the gulf gets too cold for them. This is why we had to wait so long to use the groupon. (I bought it before we went to Alaska) The rivers/springs up in Crystal River stay 72 degrees year round, and so the manatees swam to this area to survive. 72 degrees may sound warm, but I assure you, it doesn't feel that warm. On the way out to the river, Mick told us about some encounters people on his boat had with manatees. They are VERY people friendly animals. Moms will swim up with babies, and once they introduce the baby to everyone, the moms will take off for a nap, and leave the baby with you to play. They often like to play/take people's snorkels and masks. They also like to give hugs, and LOVE to have their bellies scratched. He even told a story about how one kid refused to wear the wet suit, and the manatee really liked his swim trunks. So much so, the manatee took them.

Hayden was very unsure of this whole process. He wasn't thrilled with the wet suit, the snorkels seemed over whelming, and his fear was pretty evident when Mick talked about how many pounds manatees weigh. But, we assured him the manatees wouldn't hurt him, and he did not have to swim with them if he didn't want to. Mick even said he could stay on the boat with him until he decided if he wanted to go or not. We rode the boat for about 10 minutes, out to an area where there were a couple manatees. Because so many people want to swim with the manatees up at Crystal River, there are roped off area's humans are not to go, manatee safe havens if you will. We stopped and the other family got off the boat along with Calib and Peyton trying to get a lone manatee to play, but the manatee seemed uninterested, so we boarded the boat and went a few more minutes down the river.

We stopped over by a roped off area, where about 5 other boats had stopped. I think one was another tour group, and the other boats were just some random people. There were also a lot of kayaks going by. You could see at least two dozen manatees hanging out in the roped off area, and a few swimming around outside. We got into the water, being as quiet as we can be. Manatees do not like noise and splashing, so we had some pool noodles to just kind of float around on. Hayden actually got right off the boat and into the water. Asa headed off with Peyton and Hayden, and I stayed behind and just floated with Calib. The water was very clear, and probably no more than 4 feet deep. There were two sleeping in the water, but you can't pet or disturb a sleeping manatee. Just being in the water with them was very cool though, and you could stick your mask under the water to see them close up.

Calib and I decided we would just float, and see if anyone would come up to us. Sure enough, in a few minutes, Mick quietly called out "Just behind you". Calib turned around, saw the manatee, and then turned back to me, and I could see the terrified look on his face. He just yelled out "I'm scared!" and then he quickly composed himself, all tween like, and said "I mean, I'm cold, I'm cold". He missed out on petting the first one, as it swam by. Eventually, another one came up to him, and he got it together, and began to scratch the underside of it's belly. The Manatee rolled over, with his tummy sticking out of the water to get a nice belly rub.

After Peyton and Asa had pet a few manatees, they decided to take a swim down an offshoot of the river down to a spring where it was crystal clear, about 40 feet deep, and swarming with fish. I stayed behind with Hayden, and Calib who quickly decided after his experiences with the manatees he was done, and he got out of the water, and onto the boat where Mick supplied him with some hot chocolate. Calib then got out my camera and took a couple pictures of me and Hayden in the water.

A few more swam around us, and I would get to pet a few. But Hayden never made it over to one in time to pet it. Here's the problem, you had to be really quiet, and float (Not Kick!!) for the manatees to want to come up to you. Hayden was neither of these things. He kept saying how badly he wanted to pet one, but eventually his lips were chattering so much that I had to make the executive decision to get out of the water. I know he was disappointed, but the manatee swim does come up on groupon a lot, and after this experience, I would certainly purchase it agian. Although, I would do it not on a weekend, when there is less people around, and early in the morning, when the manatees are more active. We got back on the boat, got ourselves some hot chocolate, and then Asa and Peyton came back and boarded the boat. We saw a few more on our trip back to the docks, along with a whole lot of pelicans. Also, fyi, wet suits are actually easier to take off than they are to put on. I had no idea this was the case, but I was quite pleasantly surprised.

We got back around dinner time, and hung out with popcorn, sofa beds and watched Moneyball together. (Well, Hayden sat closely by and watched Phineas and Ferb Across the Second Dimension and had to be reminded not to sing 'I've got a brand new best friend and it's me' song too loud) Good Movie, I totally recommend it. Also, super cool the kids watch more than just kids stuff these days. Gear Up Groundhog day for February second, because that's totally happening.

Sunday after boring stuff like cleaning up the house and doing homework, we went out to the Xtreme fun center in Largo. Included in our groupon was 4 games of laser tag (we had to add one for Hayden), 8 batting cage rounds, and 200 arcade tokens. We got there right when they opened at one to minimize the birthday parties, and whiny kids trying to cut in line for deal or no deal. Laser tag was super fun. We all strapped on our laser tag backpacks, and spent our 12 minutes decimating the red and blue teams. Hayden LOVED it, and started cackling quite the evil laugh every time he got someone. Look out for that one. Calib and Peyton kept trying to shoot me, which they thought was funny- but didn't really do anything since we were on the same team. Afterwards, all of us minus Hayden took two rounds in the batting cage, while Hayden made friends with a little girl, and paid for their date to the air hockey table. She was cute, but too much of a sore loser to be Hayden's type. I guess it's not going to work out for those two crazy kids

.

Then we started in on spending our tokens. Today I learned : 200 arcade tokens is A LOT of tokens. He originally had plans to divide them up, but that idea was quickly deemed unnecessary, as we'd play more and more games, and it didn't seem like the pile was getting any smaller. I did learn not to move back up north, because if crazy taxi is any indication, if I slipped on black ice, I would surely over correct and end up in a ditch. We played basketball, and air hockey, and pretty much every game, until we started in with the ticket games. Deal or no Deal was super fun, and yielded us a lot of tickets- but then, Calib hit the jackpot on one of those spin to see how many tickets you get. While Calib was still celebrating his windfall, Hayden played the same game getting the jackpot of 100 tickets AGAIN. Someone needs to take these kids to Vegas, stat! Peyton then inserted his token and won 1 ticket. He was pretty bummed about this, and we moved on. With two tokens left Peyton decided he wanted to play the game where the timer moves up quickly, and if you hit the button and get it to stop on 1000, you win 300 tickets. He wanted to try it- and he hit it ending on 998, getting 10 tickets. So, he put the last token in- hit the button- and landed on 1000. A 300 ticket windfall for Peyton.

The guy at the ticket counter was super nice too. He wasn't the usual annoyed at kids for trying to add up their tickets and decide what they wanted. He took one look at our 1200 tickets, and told each of the boys they could have 550, and then didn't even care when Hayden went over by 50. I really need to go give them a good review. The boys ended up with all kinds of random things- but Peyton got this really big stuffed snake. He's pretty impressed with himself because he got a stuffed animal from an arcade, which to a kid seems like an impossible feat.

Today I started getting some things packed. The closet is turning out to be quite the daunting task, and Asa and I are now taking bets on how many trips we'll have to take to the new house before we're all moved in. He settled on 26, I'm thinking 30. It's like that 'how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop' question. Except, I am going to keep a tally. I did mapquest it today- it's 2.98 miles from here. We also played flashlight tag. I so would have won that last round, but Asa was making a racket in Calib's closet which made the kids open the toilet room door (because they back up to each other), and they found me first!

And the Award for..

Best Impression: Hayden with the tall laundry basket on his head " I. AM. A. RO-BOT. BEEP. BEEP. BOOP"

Caught Red Handed: Calib Skyping Grandma way past his bedtime

Best Idea: Hide-n-go-seek in the dark, in the new house, before anything is in it. New Waterstraut tradition forming right there.

Next Up: Keys, Birthday Cake, 100 Goldfish, and Mickey Ears!

Week 25: Tomorrow: The Best Time To Do Everything You Had Planned For Today

Best news of the week: We aren't going to be homeless! Yay! We officially have our new house. Though, our thoughts are this is a temporary home that we will be out of in less than a year- so don't address those Christmas cards just yet- I'm pleased we were able to find a new house close enough to what we need. Priority number one was the same school district. We got that. We don't however, have a fenced in yard. However, yay for a living room and a family room. Rock Band will no longer consume the only common living space, and Asa can finally have a space for his work from home computer, besides Calib's bedroom. I think this will also be a good indication on what we really need to look for in the house we want to buy, and it also gives us plenty of time to go after the short sales, which are plentiful, but I thought out of the question due to the lengthy process. All around, it'll be a good move. Let me know if you want our new address, I sent out an email, but I know I missed some of you.

This week also saw the big campaign of 2012. No, not the presidential campaign, but the campaign to get Peyton's named changed. Hayden has become obsessed with this, informing us all many, many times that he has decided their names sound too much alike. He has started in on his 'Change Peyton's Name' Campaign. I suggested we had a debate, and election. Peyton was not amused by the idea. We'll have to see if the motion makes it past the primaries. I'll keep you informed.

Biggest Accomplishment of the week goes to Peyton, who didn't complain when Asa had accidentally gotten the toaster pastries with cream cheese filling. Occasionally the boys will get these as a special treat, but when I pulled them out of the freezer, I noticed the box and thought Peyton was surely going to throw a fit. Which, have been fewer and farther between. (Good news for my sister in law, Holly, they start to grow out of it when they're nearly 10- you're over halfway there!) He ate it, said he preferred that we not get that kind again, and went on with his day. I was quite proud of this very grown up reaction.

This week we also saw the return of American Idol to our DVR. We've all been watching together, complete with popcorn on the stove (since we've been microwave-less for about a month now- the new house has one above the stove- yay!), and everyone guessing whether or not the person can sing before they start in. Peyton is by far the best guesser. Anyway, we need new shows to watch together- Survivor doesn't come back for a few weeks, although we already have someone to root for, because her husband is a pretty prominent guy here in Tampa.

Friday night I was a bit bummed so we had a family sleepover, watched some random stuff, had some snacks, and hung out. I gotta thank everyone for being extra nice to me this weekend. I even got a soup bowl for lunch on Saturday. Fyi, Publix has the best soup ever-and their bread bowls are on sale for $1.19 this week! My freezer got stocked.

Saturday we headed over to the Art Fest at Wiregrass. It was a free event they have every year at the outdoor mall. The main street gets closed off to cars and they brought in all kinds of cool vendors, artists, and various pottery places. My favorite was a sunflower outdoor shower. I thought it was really cool, and should I ever have a need for such things, I'll be getting one. It'd be very cute out by a pool. They also had a guy who made cute little random people out of bullet casings. He had like a dog walker, a ninja, and random animals. It amazes me what people can do with the strangest things. There was also some very cool pottery places, and people drawing big elaborate (some even 3D) chalk drawings on the street. Had we not been going out afterwards, we could have brought Porkchop and Phenom, there were tons of dogs there. I thought my cousin Joanne had the biggest dog ever, but then we saw an alaskan malamute. Holy Moly.

Afterwards, we went out to Ikea to look around, get some ideas for things I might want to pick up for the new house (because everyone knows getting/needing to shop at ikea is one of the best parts about moving). Peyton was just under the height limit for the play area, so we got to drop him and Hayden off there together. Too bad Calib and Asa were too tall to play in there, they ended up sword fighting with feather dusters in the kitchen section.

Saturday night we went over to our friends Katie and Kevin's house for game night. Kevin has a daughter just a little older than Hayden, and a brother just a little bit older than Calib, so the kids all got to play together. Noah and Ann came over too, and we played some Bubble Talk and some team Dicecapades. (which Asa and I totally won- go team Waterstraut!) It's nice to have friends our age, with kids our kids age. That doesn't happen very often. Hopefully we'll all be getting together again soon.

Sunday morning we got up and went out to Dinosaur World. A friend of mine had told me about 50 percent off tickets in January if you bring in canned goods. We hadn't been before so we piled the boys and the dogs in the car and went out to Plant City. They had a really great playground, complete with a swing set of tire swings, and a fossil dig- in which the boys got to sift through the sand and keep three fossils that they found (included in the price of admission- yay!) Then we walked around and saw all the dinosaurs, and Peyton made sure to stop and read every plaque. My personal favorite was the Utahraptor. Can you guess which state the Utahraptors bones were found in? They also had cute little interactive stations, and a koi pond where the boys got to feed the fish. Overall it was a fun visit. I don't think I would have paid full price for it, but with the half off admission it was totally worth it.

We made it home in time to catch football- which is now dead to me. I can't believe the Raven's lost because they missed an easy field goal. I was/am heartbroken. Then, the 49ers had to go and lose. Which means if the Patriots win the super bowl, Peyton wins the family pool. How depressing. I really want to boycott the superbowl now, but Justin's having a party because I made him, so I think I'll go and drown my sorrows in a peanut butter ball. In other football news, the Bucs got a head coach. He's on par with Spud Manpants, but I'm reserving judgement. We'll see how it goes. On the up side, people in Tampa seem to be unimpressed by this move, which just means tickets will be cheap next year, and Asa and I can get really good seats to see Philip Rivers play, and this time, he's likely to win.

Tuesday Hayden had a note in his planner, letting me know that Hayden needed to learn how to spell/write his last name. Heres the thing- it's ELEVEN letters. The poor kid. I'm not going to press it too hard, because it stresses him out. He can't remember the beginning by the time we get to the end. And, there are certain things he'll just pick up over time. I get really annoyed with his teacher because one minute she's telling us he's beyond most first graders, but then we get notes about how he doesn't use a kleenex properly, zip his hoodie on his own, or spell his last name. I figure he's not going to be filling out his college applications and still asking me how to spell it, while sneezing all over the place, and not being able to bundle himself up for the cold weather. We'll work on it, but I'm in no hurry to 'remedy this asap' like I was told to do by his teacher.

Yesterday something pretty cool happened. I know I've raved about the site reddit on here before, but this was super cool, so I must share. Asa had posted on there about how this game, dungeon defenders, that he plays ALL THE TIME with the boys had stopped having updates for the Xbox. He talked about how it was a great game, he played a ton of hours with the kids, but that he was disappointed the updates came out for the PC and not for the Xbox. The makers of the game saw the post, and emailed him a code to get the complete game on the PC for free. They asked if they could do anything else, and Asa asked if he could have another code to put it on Calib's laptop so they could play online together, and the makers of the game came back with a code almost immediately and thanked Asa for his interest in the game. Pretty Awesome.

Last night we brought out Munchkin, it had been awhile since we had played it. In case you don't know, it's a card game in which you fight Monsters to gain levels, and once you get yourself to a level 10 you win. Asa was on the verge of winning, so I handed Calib, a go up a level card, and a monster to fight that I knew he could beat, and Calib catapulted into the win. It was pretty epic.

Funny quotes from Hayden this week:

Hayden: "Mom, do you think Bullseye can still run like the wind with his broken leg?"

Me: "I don't know Hayden."

Hayden: "I don't think so. He needs to go to the super glue hospital"

Hayden: "Where's my lotion"

Me: "I don't know, you can use mine. You'll smell pretty. You want to smell it?"

Hayden: "Argh.. Ok" (sniffs lotion) "That smells like Pink"

Next Up: Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh- I am SO excited- Saturday is MANATEE SWIM DAY!! It's supposed to be sunny and semi warm, I can hardly contain my excitement!

Week 24: "Hello? Is This Spud Manpants?"

Well, it's Thursday and I'm getting the blog up- which is a bit late. I have no excuse really. I've done a whole lot of nothing this week. Mostly because I feel like we're living in a state of limbo. I mean, why clean/organize/start any projects when we'll just be leaving here in a few weeks anyway. No need to trim the hibiscus, cut the grass, clean out the pantry, or the garage. Which, all would have been on my to do list, had this move not been so abrupt. Now, you may be thinking I should be boxing things up. But, the reality of the matter is were moving less than 10 minutes away- theres really no need for a whole lot of boxes. This week our current landlord said we could stay until the 15th because as he said it "I'm gonna be a nice guy and let you stay till the 15th rent free". As Mom said however, "it's your security deposit at work". Lets face it, that deposit is long gone. Anyway, new rent will be due on the first in whichever place we end up at (yes, I know I said we had decided- but apparently the market is flooded with houses that fit our needs- and our latest find has a fenced in back yard!), so we'll have 15 days to move things over. Then, one day of moving the big things with a bunch of friends who have requested pizza and chocolate ice cream as their only form of payment, and we should be all done.

Anyway, yes, back to my original thought- I'm living in a life of limbo. It's a very sad existence, theres not much to do, wait for the mail lady to arrive to see what kind of junk mail she's got for me today. (Seriously- how many mattress ads can a person get in a week?) Chase the trash guys down the street, to make sure you get it out in time (I have been gathering up and tossing things that won't make the move with us- so trash day has become rather important). Let the dogs out 15 times a day, and marvel and Porkchop and Phenoms ability to pee in the exact same spot at the exact same time.

Oh, and watch TV- Granted, I sew and quilt while I've been doing so- but, I've watched a lot of daytime TV lately. It really is awful. Did you know Maury Povich is still on the air? And from what I can tell- all his shows revolve around paternity tests. How you gonna be on Maury three times and STILL not know who the dad is? I think someone just wanted a free trip to New York. Also, Regis is long gone. For a minute I thought Seth Meyers had replaced him. Yes! Weekend Update 5 days a week. But, alas, he was just a guest host of sorts. Oh, and never watch that show 'The Doctors", which could easily be called 'How many different diseases/dangers can we scare the crap out of you with". I did not need to know one person dies every day from slipping and falling in the bathroom. I now just view my bathroom as one giant death trap. Also, why was Snoop Dog on the Price is Right? Funny the set looks the same as when I used to watch it right after Mr. Ed before heading off to afternoon kindergarten, and that annoying person that's last to bid still chimes in with that $1 over the highest bid... jerks.. But, something about Drew Carey and Snoop Dog together on the Price is Right just seems wrong.

Next week it's really time to buckle down on the quilting, I'm trying to get it done before I head off to Tennessee mid-February. I suspect the first two weeks of February will be a much more productive 'living in limbo' time, than these last few weeks. Gonna have to break out some slow cooker recipes for those days. Things are about to get really busy around here. We've got weekend plans as long as the calendar can see. This week, when I thought about it, I told Asa maybe I should get going on some things at least, he deterred me with his charm, and video games. Then we both decided, it was too early to procrastinate even. So, we procrastinated the procrastination. That's how the Waterstrauts do it, people!

On to the weeks events- because that's probably what you came here to check out, anyway. If anyone is actually still reading my blog. It's nearly half way through the year of the weekly blog, so I don't blame you if you've lost interest. I know, I'm not as entertaining as I pretend to be. And now, because I've written a few paragraphs, and have lost interest in my week 24 blog already, Lets do things a little different this week. Here's some pictures, captions, lessons, quotes, and awards for the week. Enjoy, my friends.

Why I love living in Florida. This is how we spend random January Days. Who's jealous?

Ice Cream at the Beach.. In January! How is that not awesome?

Clearwater has two celebrities: Hulk Hogan, and Winter the Dolphin. This is Winter, notice the absences of the mustache.

Look! It's a PAINTED turtle.. Ba dump dump chshshsh

Bathing Suit.. Shmathing suit. Hayden doesn't care.

Lessons of the Week:

Lesson #1: Kids can be easily bribed to root for the correct NFL teams with sour straws. But, when the incorrect team loses (Tim Tebow), they will not fake disappointment nearly as well.

Lesson #2: Don't attempt to have the first ever Waterstraut Kickball Tournament and have Hayden count as outs. He'll run the bases till he collapses when he's not up to kick- but when he is up to kick, he'll kick the ball, then sit down in the fetal position waiting to have the ball thrown at him. (Lesson #3- we're probably not ready for the first ever Waterstraut Dodgeball Tournament)

Lesson #4: Don't play as Eastern Michigan University on NCAA, no matter if your wife went to school there, and you think you can save them from the football playing abyss. And, don't fool yourself into thinking a coach named 'Spud ManPants' can save this team, with his dirty t-shirt covering his beer belly, scruffy beard, and 1980's visor. (Asa, here's looking at you)

Lesson 4 brings me to the funniest quote of the week:

Hayden: *picks up phone* "Hello?"

Calib: "Hayden tell Mom we got to Casey's ok"

Hayden: "Hello? Is this Spud Manpants?"

Calib: *sigh* "Just tell Mom"

Hayden: "Ok, Happy Spud Manpants Day"

You had to be there. I cried. SO funny.

In a distant second, but still rather amusing/disturbing thanks to the FL grading system:

Calib: "I don't get it. If you have to pass the FCAT to move on to the next grade, why do all the other grades really matter, anyway?"

Awards for the week:

The Award for the Best Environmental Do-Gooder: Peyton.

He spent his day at the beach, picking up trash, after his trip to the Aquarium Animal where we learned about animals who were harmed because of the trash. An old guy up on the pier even yelled down "Good Man!" to Peyton, who got more and more disgusted each time he found a piece of trash. Ah, tourists, Clearwater Beach, and their cheeze-it boxes. Jerks.

The Award for the Biggest Over-reaction: Oakstead Elementary

We got an automated call Thursday Night letting us know we needed to 'bundle the kids up as it's going to be a cold day tomorrow'. Yes, bundle them up- the high is only expected to be 62!!!

Best Football Game of the Weekend: Um, 49ers and Saints, obviously.

If you like football, and you didn't catch this- what is wrong with you! It might be the best game I've ever watched. Plus, the Saints lost. Added Bonus.

Worst Report Card Reaction: Calib

Yes, it was report card time this week. Peyton got a respectable three B's and two C's. Hayden of course got all S's (for Successful). And Calib, well, he came in with a disappointing 4 A's and one B. I'm sorry but, I have trouble feeling sorry for a kid who pouts about the one B. We had to tell him, yet again, to 'stop being all Uncle Clint' about it. After of course we were good parents and told him how great it actually was. Peyton gets three B's and two C's and says 'Yes! That's GREAT!' Calib gets 4 A's and one B, hangs his head in shame, and says 'Why can't I ever get all A's?'

Best Dinner of the Week: Low Country Boil!

Made by this girl! *points at self* Seriously, best low maintenance meal ever. How did I not know about such a thing till a few weeks ago? So yummy, easy to make- so go make one. Yum.

And finally.. I give you...

Biggest Milestone of the week: Hayden

He climbed all the way to the top of the rope pyramid at the playground for the very first time ever. AND, wait for it.... He got down ALL BY HIMSELF.

Next Up: Dinosaurs! Art Fests! And Puzzle Parties- Oh My! (And probably the start of some procrastination)

Week 23: I Hope You Step On A Lego!

Well, I have less fun exciting things to report this week, and more unfun and unexciting things to report.

The good news is, Calib got home safely from his trip up north. His hair, however, did not. Here's the thing about Calib's long hair: I don't like it, but he does. I feel like you really have to pick and choose your battles. As long as he takes care of it, washes it, brushes it, is it really that big of a deal that it's long, and in his eyes? He likes it, and it's HIS hair. So, that's fine. But, other people have other ideas, and take him to get a haircut no matter what he says, or how much he protests. He's been wearing hoodies and hats since he got home just to kind of hide his new haircut. It'll grow out again, I know, but I feel bad for him in the meantime.

After he got home, Asa decided to call the landlord (again-we'd been trying for a week to get ahold of him) to see about renewing our lease for 3 or 6 months. Until yesterday, we had no indication we weren't signing another lease, and every indication that we were. But, our landlord is now non-committal and refusing to tell us if he wants us to go our stay when the lease is up February first. Unfortunately, we just can't stay here any longer, especially when at the moment we have another option. We did find a rental in the same school district, which turned out to be way too small. I'm willing to downsize, but not half the space I have now. I just don't think that's doable. So, we went back to the drawing board. Initially, we thought it was going to be really difficult to find a reliable rental. But, it turns out, not so much. We put in an application for another, thats actually a bit better space than we have now, and may put in another one tomorrow. Both are a couple subdivisions over, same school district, about the same price were paying now, and owned by Realtor and their companies. They aren't up for sale or anything, but more made for people like us, who are close to buying, but not quite there yet. I think the expectation is then you'll use the realtor that you rent the house from, which I really have no problem with. And, as far as our current landlord goes- well, my blog title is directed at him. And guess what? I'm taking all my energy efficient light bulbs with me, and you're getting dollar store ones instead. So ha! I've also been letting the big lights above the sink the the bathroom burn out, and I have not been replacing them. There's only 4 of the 8 left. Take that!

Because of all the house hunting, and crap of that nature going on, I don't have a lot to report for this week. The boys did go back to school, and are still tired and whiny in the morning. I take partial blame, as I didn't try and readjust them back to a schedule a few days ahead of time, and instead just tucked them in bed, wide awake, at 9:30 pm on Monday night. Yea, they were still up at 11:30. Luckily, Asa swapped working from home on Saturday morning for having a day off on Tuesday, and was here to help round them up in the morning. Hayden wasn't having it. Luckily, nobody got homework the first day back, so they were all able to come home from school and lay on the couch like zombies for a few hours, before falling asleep before 10 last night.

Calib and Peyton have been spending a bunch of time over at their friend, Casey's house lately. Casey is an only child, and I think his parents enjoy having our kids over because it keeps Casey busy, and more importantly un-bored. Because, as any parent would know, a bored child is pretty awful to deal with. And, I think Rich and Shea also know right now is pretty stressful with the whole move in a hurried fashion is pretty stressful on us. So, thanks to them for adopting my children the last few days of vacation, and last night- and feeding them, and dropping them off for us. Last week Petyon had two sleepovers over at Casey's, and Calib was still in Ohio, so Hayden was freaking out at the prospect of sleeping by himself. We dragged his mattress into our room, and had a mini sleepover, and we may or may not have had ice cream out of the carton while watching cartoons.

Friday Asa had switched days again to gain a work from home day, and lose a regular work day. So, we went out to the ropes course at Mosi. I went on the ropes course with my friend Brandy when she was visiting, and it was super fun. I knew Peyton would love it- so we took the opportunity to take him out there. Hayden was happy to just play on the playground, while Asa and Peyton climbed the entire course. I kept my feet on the ground this time, and took lots of pictures, and really, thats the only exciting pictures I have for the week, so here they are, have a look!

Friday Night Justin had us over for dinner, and we made this Pub Chicken that was delicious. I'm going to have to pick up the recipe next time I'm at publix, because it was easy to make, easy to keep Peyton and Hayden's chicken plain, and everyone was happy. Well, except for Asa and his spinach, but he ate it anyway. The boys were very ancy though, so I brought them home to catch the finale of Wizards of Waverly Place (which God help me, I somehow got roped into watching), and Asa stayed to play some video games with Justin.

We did get to watch all the football games this weekend though, even though I had to make a run to the airport to get Calib, and Asa had to work Saturday morning. Our whole family made our playoff and superbowl predictions. My mom was here too, so she made her picks. I'm in the lead, after picking everyone but Denver correctly. I know, I went with my head, not my heart, or I for sure would have picked the Tim Tebow team. But then, my heart would have had me pick the Falcons too. The good news is, it can't be my worst case superbowl of the Steelers vs. the Packers now.

I did manage to be productive this week too, got all the Christmas stuff down, get a good laundry head start, even made my own 'no more tangles' because I was either going to have to start buying the stuff by the gallon, or finally, after 6 years, actually find someone to cut my hair in Florida. Oh, and we made our manatee swim reservations- which I'm really hoping we don't have to reschedule because of this whole having to move situation. I also lived through helping Peyton with his homework for the first time in a month. Common factor time!

We also got all of our amazon orders. I finally have a camera with a flash again, and Asa got this new fangled coffee maker thing. Calib got his mp3 player, and is going into full fledged- stick in some headphones and not listen to my parents-teenage mode. Peyton's pillow pet mistakenly got delivered to Ohio, but made his way back down here via an airplane ride. Hayden also got a pillow pet, and the pout-pout fish book. I love Amazon, you can get anything there!

Up Next: Hopefully some official house plans, something fun, and another Tim Tebow win.. I think... maybe...hopefully..

Week 22: Stressed Spelled Backwards is Desserts!

Here's the deal, folks.. It's Wednesday already (where did the week go) , so we're going to just do a quick recap of the weeks events in mostly pictures.. Here we go!

Wednesday we headed out to the FL Botanical Gardens to see all the twinkling lights, and get some hot chocolate. We saw triangle, teddy bear, and zombie palm trees (yea, for real), and discovered Phenom is a fan of teenagers, but not older ladies with walkers. We also learned Mom is only good at the quiet game until she wants to know what some random building in. Then, she's a monkey.

Later, we learned you can soften the blow of a Dicecapeds loss with some ice cream. It's also not impossible to balance a card on the little dice, and nobody can beat me in the flick the dice across the table challenge. I am victorious! It was an intense game though, resulting in a pictionary tie between Asa and Justin- which was awfully lame.

Thursday, Mom took me to Costco, and split the cost of a brand new gps with me- my half was the money I got from my grandma for Christmas. I now I have disembodied GPS lady to yell at- I couldn't be happier! I also got this nifty blender/chopper/wisker that I'm pretty excited to use. Quick someone email me a recipe that requires all three!

Nintendo Monopoly- not so much fun with kids who don't know the value of a dollar. I get it, you want a Monopoly- but you probably shouldn't pay $500 and four other properties to your brother to get such a thing.

A trip to the aquarium for their Christmas Events was in order Thursday night- the boys pet snakes, and star fish, waved at the Mermaids, checked out the sand carving, watched the light show, and took a spin on a train. When we got home Asa had completely tricked me and picked me up the penguin ice cream scoop that I thought was adorable- plus my Fraggles came- so it was like Christmas all over again!

Friday my mom and I headed out to Joanne Fabrics, and Kohls for some shopping. When we got home we had a quick dinner, and then went out to Wild Wonderland at the zoo. It was a good time- with free rides, free hot chocolate, lights, inflatable slides, and reindeer. Also, filed under Today I learned.. Penguins won't swim in the dark. Apparently this is due to an irrational fear that sharks will eat them. Also filed under the Today I learned.. alcoholic egg nog is disgusting.

Saturday was New Years Eve, so after a nice brunch complete with 'ball dropping' 2012 pancakes, we took a trip to Venice. While my grandpa doesn't live there any longer, it's kind of a Sattler family tradition to be there on New Years Eve. A stop at Pleasures and Treasures was in order, so Peyton could pick out a dead fish to add to his collection, and Hayden could get some more hermit crab shells. Then we went out to Sharkys beach and Restaurant, where we had a delicious late lunch, all while breaking the 'stay on the premises while you wait' rule, and played at the beach until we watched the sun set for the last time in 2011. A trip to Venice isn't complete without a trip to the ice cream parlor, so we made a stop there before heading home.

Then, we all dragged our mattresses out to the living room, and had a New Years Sleepover. The boys got to watch 'Home Alone' for the first time, and we all watched the ball drop at midnight- where the boys all promptly got up to do every day things to say they were the first one to -insert random thing here- in 2012.

Sunday we won't speak of, oh, Tampa Bay Buccaneers.. You hurt my heart. We won't talk about what happened to them Monday either- because, while I understand, I'm also sad about that. I would say 'there's always next year' but that makes me sound like a Browns fan or something.

However, Sunday also saw the first annual Pillow Pet Olympics. Or, as Peyton likes to say PPO. (Not to be confused with our new dental plan that took effect this week. Braces and Root Canals for everyone!) Also, apparently, even when you're 30 your mother can use your middle name to get her point across. Ironically this time it was because I was DOING chores, not just trying to get out of them.

Monday I had gotten tickets to ICE! At the Gaylord Palms. A whopping 9 degrees somehow feels a little warmer when you know you can walk out of it, and never see cold like that again. The ice sculptures of Shrek were awesome, and a trip down the ice slides was also pretty cool. (No pun intended). At the exit, we were supplied with kleenex, and got to take off our parka's and return to the warmth of the Florida sun (which felt a lot warmer after being in the Ice Exhibit). Perks of going the last day: everything in the gift shop was 75 percent off!

After Ice, we headed over to the T-Rex Restaurant, where Asa ate like a T-Rex. His lunch included mashed potatoes, waffle fries, ribs, and half a chicken. Plus, we had the appetizer sampler, and Peyton shared his pasta. Gotta love the T-Rex though, and we got to eat in the meteor shower room- yay! I nearly escaped being eaten by the Dinosaur just above our table a good 15 times. That's me, super dino elusive.

After that we walked around downtown disney- collecting our free chocolate- and took the boat down to Port Orleans Resort. We figured based on crowds, the parks would be too crowded to go into. We played on the playground, walked around the pool, joined in on an alligator parade- and while I didn't get to go to Cafe Du Monde this fall- I did end up with Beignets! Afterward, we took a trip to the World of Disney- where the boys each picked out a small item.

Then it was home to pack things up for Calib and Mom, and a quick game of Frazzle, which I won, due to Calib's inability to read my strengths. I can name shoe brands better than anyone in the family- apparently working at Kohls was beneficial!

Tuesday morning, I got up at 4 am to take Mom and Calib to the airport. We'll see mom mid-February, and Calib in five days, so it wasn't too terribly depressing saying goodbye. We had a good time with mom here, and I've never been so excited to get free groceries!

Tuesday night Asa and I also watched our first episode of the Bachelor. It's so much fun to make fun of the chicks on there- but even more fun now that Asa actually knows one of them. Apparently she worked at the gym at Asa's work. He thinks he's famous now by association. Weirdo.

Funny/Weird One Liners/Conversations worth noting this week:

Hayden: "I like your belly button. Can I just look at it for a second?"

Me: "Calib, what are you doing out there?"

Calib: "I'm cutting the cheese"

We all got a good laugh out of that one- but he was actually cutting some block cheese

Peyton: "It's almost 2012!"

Asa:"Yes, and our lives will change so much because of it"

Calib: "I know, I'll have to remember to write 12 on everything now."

Me: "Let's not stay up till New Years- we can just record it"

Asa: "And then at the end of every month, we'll watch it at midnight and I'll jump in front of the screen and yell.... March!!"

After seeing the 'Alaska: this is the year' Commercial they keep running

Peyton: "Um, no. That was last year, duh"

And just now..

Hayden: "Mom will you set up my table fort"

Me: "Yea, Hayden, just let me finish my blog"

Hayden: (walks out to Asa): "Yea, mom said she's help me after she finishes her blog, whatever a blog is."

Next Up: Calib will be back Sunday!! Until then, there's a whole lot of nothing but boring things like putting Christmas stuff away. We might be able to muster in some fun there somewhere though.