Yeah, tomorrow is Friday!  I can't WAIT!

I guess I'm just a little burnt out from the week.  Can you tell?

Tommorrow night is Bee Movie night, so Michael and I will go out to the movies and do the "guy thing".  Saturday is Snow Day at a nearby city, so we'll take the kids to go and play in the snow.

Which brings me to my next gripe:  I went out to buy some winter gear for the kids, mainly gloves and nice warm jackets.  Stuff like that is fairly difficult to find here in California.  I mean, what real use do we have for that stuff, but I finally  found a couple of things that will do the trick for each kid.

Then I started looking at the adult gloves for us bigger people.  My GOD!  The average price that I saw was $50!  Are they all like this?  The last time I wore gloves, they were kids gloves and I really d ...

Looking through my traffic stats today, I noticed I was getting some traffic from people looking for the meaning of the name Kailynn.  So, as a public service, I figured I'd do my part to help out here.  Never say I don't get you guys anything.

According to BabyNamer.com, Kailynn's source is Caoilinn, a Gaelic name meaning "Slim and fair."   Now, if we look at my daughter, that's pretty accurate.  She is definately pretty skinny and she is fair in complexion.

We also bought one of those birthday fact sheets for both of our kids and it gives the meaning of Kailynn as a juxtaposition of Kay (meaning unsullied or unspoiled) and Lynn (meaning a gentle brook).  I've always used that as a decription when people ask me what Kailynn means and then explain that her personality is the polar opposite.  I think she's ...

Watching Michael interact with his girl friend from across the street is pretty funny.  I have come to the conclusion that girls mature socially MUCH faster then boys do.  The little girl wants to hold Michael's hand or hug him and he doesn't want anything to do with it and he has no idea what to do when she hugs him.  It's pretty comical to watch.  They play really well together otherwise and they get along really well.

Thinking back on my life, I have been pretty clueless about girls too, so poor Michael is stuck being a boy and being clueless about girls for most of his life.

Now, having a girl too, albeit, only a 2 year old girl, I see a difference in her social skills compared to Michael.  She likes to hug and hold hands and is very adept at taking care of her baby dolls and feeds them their bottles and feeds them.  Michael is more into putting them in their strollers and racing them around the house.&l ...

Legos seem like such a cool toy when you see them at the store.  You think to yourself, "That would be kinda cool to build together with my child.  It would be a GREAT bonding experience!"  You buy the Lego toy all happy with yourself, take it home, and hand it over to your progeny with a smile on your face.  You setup a time to get started and then the time comes.  You carefully open up the box and all the little plastic packages that come inside of the box.  You seperate out all of the pieces in some sort of logical order that makes sense to you.  You look through the instructions a couple of times and get yourself mentally ready to tackle it.  Meanwhile, your child is anxiously staring at you repeatedly asking if you are ready yet.&nb ...

Well, Happy Thanksgiving everybody and welcome to the Christmas shopping season!  Gentlemen and ladies, start those shopping engines!

I don't know what it is this year, but the Christmas season just seems to have started extra early this year.  We have a neighbor that put up their Christmas lights the week before Thanksgiving.  And what is it about the stores having all of their Chritmas decorations up even before Halloween this year?

I dug out all of the Christmas stuff out of the closet on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we started up decorating.  As you can see, the kids took an active role in decorating.  Even Michael, who was sick most of this weekend helped out against our better judgement (he's wearing his PJ's in the photo). ...

Michael is spending the next couple of days at Nana's house.  He's out of school all this week, so he wanted to spend a couple of days at Nana's.  He gets to play with his cousin, have some time away from sissy, and get spoiled by Nana a little.  And he gets to play with his toys that he has up there that he doesn't get to play with as much anymore since he's in school now.  Plus it's good Nana-Michael bonding time.

Of course we miss him, as we always do, but man, it SURE does stay cleaner around here when he's not around.  Yes, Kailynn makes a mess too,  but with the two of them together, it's like a class 5 hurricane goes through this place everyday.

And Kailynn is really cute when her brother isn't around.  Generally when Michael is around, he rules the roost and everything is as he wants it, but when big brother is away Kailynn can do whatever she wants, plays whatever she wants, and has a ball. ...

OK, I'm back after taking a few days off for sick time and just generally being burnt out on the whole computer thing.  This is the first day this computer has been on since last Friday or so, which is a minor miracle for me.

One thing I've noticed with having kids in school or daycare is that they get to be around a lot of other kids that are sick (lucky them).  My daughter seems to have a perpetual snotty nose and therefore germs are just flying around this place.  The kids like hanging around me and hanging off of me and generally wiping their noses all over my body.  My daughter was having a hissy fit and wanted to be cuddled, so as she's crying on my shoulder I look down and notice that my shoulder s just covered with snot and slobber.  That's got to be very unsanitary.

Needless to say, I'm sick a lot too, since I'm around the kids quite a bit.  It's very difficult NOT to get sick when you're around it. ...

Today was award day at Michael's school.  He was "Star Student" for a week last month and he was very proud of himself.  He definately enjoyed his week of showing off and being large and in charge and was not ready to give up the torch.  He told me that he was jealous of the next star student and was pretty bummed for a few days after he wasn't star student anymore.  So, today was another day for him to shine since he was able to stand up in front of the kindergarten classes and get his award.  We'll have to get him a frame for his award so he can put it up in his room.

Today I came home and his girlfriend from across the street was playing over.  They were playing school and Michael was, of course, the teacher.  He was putting his friend through the paces and having her line up and "listen to the teacher".  It was pretty funny.  He has decided that he wants to beco ...

Michael received his first Kindergarten report card today.  It was definately a tense time waiting for it the past week.  We even had to go in for parent teacher conference.  I guess that's what parents and teachers do with their time anymore.  Michael says he wasn't worried at all.

We went in today, I had Michael with me, so he colored quitely by himself while Super Mega Mom and myself sat down in the little teeny tiny chairs at a teeny tiny table while Michael's teacher explained how well Michael was doing in school.

According to his teacher, Michael is doing really well in school.  Considering he started from ground zero and having never gone to preschool and refusing to draw or write, or basically learn anything, he's done stupendous.  He's gone from never having drawn before to drawing pictures of space ships and houses and people.  He went from not knowing anything, or wanting to know anything ...

I've noticed a few differences between working from home with Kailynn and working from home with Michael.  These two are approximately 3 years apart in age, but each one acts different when I'm working home with just one of them.

Interestingly enough, Kailynn is easier to work from home with.  Michael requires some more attention, because he wants me to play with him more, and wants me to help him do certain things.  Michael just requires more of my attention then Kailynn does.  There's also the added benefit that Kailynn takes a 2 to 3 hour nap during the day which allows me to focus completely on the work that I'm doing at that particular time.

Michael also has a longer memory and remembers if I promised him certain things.  Even if it was weeks ago. He'll being up something like I promised him that he could go next door and play with the little girl next door at a certain day.  He doesn't let me forget th ...