Saturday Night Special 3.12

Wow, what a crazy week we have had. I was so ready for our family movie night to begin! Tonight's featured film was a 7pm showing of "Aladdin". It's the original one, which is good. My personal favorite is the third one "Aladdin and the King of Thieves" - now THAT is a funny movie! Our encore presentation was a 9pm showing of the movie "Matilda", a classic. Love this movie! It was the first time my children had ever seen it. They loved it - particularly the older boys.

But for now, a recap of our week. Get ready!

Last Sunday was our family movie date with the kids for Frosty Flicks. Hubby thought that the movie was going to be "Megamind" but actually, it was "Legend of Guardian", based on the first three book of the "Guardians of Ga'hoole" series. Natty has the first three books in the series and had read the first book. I told him to be observant and see where the differences were between the book and the movie. It was the first time he had read a book before seeing the movie. He assumed they would be exactly the same. Man was that ever cute to watch him find the differences. I assume that the differences he noted were in fact accurate as I hadn't read the book and I didn't actually get to see the movie. Between needing pop and popcorn refills, three bathroom trips (two for Punky, one for JoNo) and then the movie being a bit too scary for Punky. (Remember, we thought it was going to be Megamind. By the time we realized it wasn't, we were at the theatre buying our tickets and it was kind of too late at that point to make alternative plans for her.)

Theatrical release poster from wikipedia

Punky and I ended up leaving the theatre and walked around the outdoor mall area where the theatre is located. We went into a few different stores and looked at clothes. Shopping without buying anything. It was a very new concept for my Punky Pie, but I think she enjoyed herself. I mean, isn't it every four year old girls' dream to go shop at Gap Kids, Gymboree, Von Maur (kids section), followed up by a stop at Claire's? Exactly. The stores in a short area were right up her alley. I did have to talk her out of going to Victoria Secret though.

Ever since she was three years old, she has had this thing for VS. I don't know what it is exactly, but I went shopping with a couple of new friends and Punky was with us. My friend, Gabby, asked Punky what she wanted to get at the mall and Punky said, "I need new unnerwears. I need CUTE unnerwears!" So, on the particular mall trip, I bought her some cute "unnerwears" from Gymboree. But even that day, she wanted to go to VS to shop. I couldn't figure out what the deal was for quite some time. I don't show at VS - I'm a plus-sized gal - VS doesn't fit me.

Eventually, I told my mother-in-law about the trip. I say eventually, but in reality, it was probably the following week. It was my mother-in-law who started the whole VS thing. She had been flipping through a VS catalog and had just absent-mindedly commented that she needed to go shopping to get some new underwear when Punky was in earshot. Punky had glanced over, saw the magazine and voila. My three (and now four) year old's obsession with VS. I just hope I can hold her off from the store until she's oh, thirty, or so.

I have to admit though, I have taken her into the store for their bath gels and lotions and sprays and stuff last year right before Christmas. But that's only because the store we were in has two separate entrances and it's divided up between the clothing and related stuff and the bath and shower stuff. She never made the connection that we were in THAT store.

Oh wow. Lots about VS there. Sorry for the tangent. But if you have been around here for any length of time, you know that I do that. A lot.

After the movie/shopping trip and a quick lunch at home, JoNo, Punky and I headed out. I was going to drop JoNo off at his friend, Con's house and also drop off our old stroller, carseat and base as planned and pick up our new lamps from Con's mom. The lamps were HUGE! I love them. They are in our living room on our tables up here. However, I think they match the style of the couches in our den. But the overall style in the den is more modern/contemporary - lots of black and silver and metal going on in that room, whereas our living room is much more traditional. I think these lamps work really well in here though. At least better than the black metal lamps that were in here before. Those are now down in the den, since they fit the style down there quite a bit more.

After dropping off JoNo, Punky and I headed over to Miss M's house. We got there a little bit early and I didn't want to just drop Punky off early, so we waited for a few minutes in the van across the circle from Miss M's house (her family lives on a cul-de-sac). Shortly after parking though, Miss M and her dad came out to their driveway and waved us on over, so we went over.

They have a beautiful house! After being in their house, they will NEVER come over here! LOL! I think our house is pretty nice, even if average, until I go to someone's house that is absolutely stunning. Just wow. So anyhow, Punky and I go in and she gets right to the business of playing with Miss M and the mom (Kate) and I sit and visit for an HOUR. I couldn't believe how easy she was to talk to! While talking, we realized that our lives connect in multiple ways. For one, she grew up near the area where we live and went to school where the boys attend school right now. Secondly, she is an ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) teacher at another school, but her best friend is one of the ECSE teachers at Boo's school. He attends school in the afternoon and Kate's best friend teaches in Boo's classroom in the morning. It's just funny how closely things overlap like that. Also, Punky's teacher from last year at the private preschool is now teaching with Kate at her school. I guess Punky and Miss M had the same teacher last year, but I don't know for sure if they were in the same class or not. I honestly cannot remember if Punky went to morning or afternoon classes. I am thinking she was in the afternoon class. I might just have to pull out some of her old papers to see if I can figure out if they were in the same class together last year too.

So, then after visiting for a long while Kate, I left with plans to go pick up Punky at 7:30 at night, which is super late for a playdate for her, but it worked out so well! Then it was off to pick up JoNo from Con's house and then head to the store to get supplies for dinner, then to come home, where Hubby, Natty, Boo and our friends Chris and Missy were waiting for us. We fixed dinner and then played some cards. During dinner I had a bottle of beer, not thinking about the fact that I was going to have to go pick up Punky shortly. I remembered that I still had to pick her up at about 7:25 and Miss M lives about 10-15 minutes from us. Crap. I'd had a drink AND I was going to be late. Just the impression that I wanted to make! Oy!

So I commandeered Missy as a driver and we took her vehicle to go pick up Punky. I called Kate to let her know that we were running late and that I'd be there shortly to get my child. She said that it was absolutely fine and that there was no problem with that. They'd only had one incident the entire time and that was when Punky needed to go to the bathroom and Miss M wanted to go in with her. Punky told her "no, I need my privacy" which I thought was hilarious and adorable! Can you tell she has three brothers?!

So, we get there and I get out and I'm standing in the driveway talking to Kate and the girls say goodbye and all is well. We go to the ice cream store and pick up ice cream for everybody and then I notice I don't have my phone. Oh crap. Figuring that the phone is in the car somewhere, we drive home and eat our ice cream, then continue looking for it. Still not able to find it. I call the ice cream store to see if they found it there. Nope. I call Kate and she and her hubby go outside and look for it. Nope. Missy and I check the vehicle. Nope. Chris and Hubby check the vehicle. Nope again. They leave and go to the ice cream store to see if it is in the lot there. Nope. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. I have things on my phone that I don't necessarily want other people to see. Missy teases me because she knows. But still the phone is nowhere to be found. I'm freaking out over it, hoping and praying that it isn't at Kate's house or that if it is, she doesn't go through my phone.

Eventually, Chris and Missy leave and then Hubby heads over to Kate's house to check for the phone. He finds it in the grass at their house. Oh. My. Goodness. I am so relieved! He comes home and all is well! Thank you!

Monday, the family starts to get sick. I'm feeling supremely blah and I sleep in and just don't feel very well. Tuesday night, JoNo gets sick. Wednesday, Natty is sick, Thursday, Boo and Hubby both get sick. Friday, they are both feeling pretty rough, but I'm feeling a lot better and JoNo gets sent home from school. Hubby took him in to see the doctor and we discovered that he had a bulging ear drum. The nurse practitioner, who we LOVE, says she is surprised that the ear drum hadn't ruptured. Poor guy! So we start antibiotics and numbing ear drops to help with the pain. Today (Saturday), Punky gets sick. Really sick. I had actually held out hope that she had missed the whole thing, but no such luck. Poor girly! Hubby was feeling better finally, but Boo is still under the weather. Since I never got sick like the family did, I'm wondering if I was able to skate through with just the blahs this week or if I'm going to get slammed like Punky did. At least, if I end up getting slammed, everyone else will be better (maybe?) by then.

I went through this week and did a major disinfecting of the common surfaces in our house. But I think for the most part, it was too little too late, as the bug was already in the incubation stages in the kiddos. Sigh. Oh well, the house needed it anyhow. And today, I'm going to go through and do it again. As well as clean the carpets. I did what I could as it was needed, but really, the carpets now just need a good, thorough cleaning. Motherhood. It's not a glamorous job. But definitely worthwhile!

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Saturday Night Special

The movie selection for tonight is "Space Chimps 2". There are two seats left for this showing, next to the 3 year old drinking root beer on the couch. I don't think he has spilled any yet, so the couch should still be dry. And be careful as you approach the couch so that you don't step on that blanket. You know, the one covering much of the floor in the center of the room. Somewhere under there is a 7 year old. He's been stepped on before, but he seriously prefers that it not happen. Something about it hurting or something like that. And those chairs facing each other by the desk? Under the blanket on those chairs is a 4 year old. It took her a serious amount of whining and complaining to drive the 3 year old out of his original spot for the night. Meanwhile, the 10 year old and I are taking up residence on opposite ends of the room, in the chairs. A good night will be had by all, I am sure.

The kids are about halfway through their movie selection for the night, which means I still have about 45 minutes to putter around on the computer and in the blogosphere. One of our big time rules for movie night is that EVERY light in the house is off. The only light generated is from my laptop and from the TV screen. They normally do not get to watch TV in the total dark, but this one night a week I do allow it for the length of one movie.

Tomorrow, we are going to the movies to watch Megamind with the three older kiddos. I was hoping to take Boo with us, but Hubby arranged for his mom to watch the boy instead. Yes, I know that Megamind is available on DVD, but Hubby and I saw it in the theaters when it was out originally and we know that the kids will like it. The theater has something going on called "Frosty Flicks". It's something that Marcus Theaters does during the winter time. It is a great deal too! They have showings on Saturday and Sunday mornings during the winter and it costs $2.00 for admission and you can get a small popcorn and a small pop for $2 apiece as well. We generally go for the large popcorn and large pop for like $11.00, because you can get free refills on them, and they even give you smaller bags to divide up the popcorn as well. It's a pretty sweet deal, really.

We got a lot of work done today, despite the fact that I had a most difficult time falling asleep last night and laid in bed until around 7:00 this morning, when I finally fell asleep. Ugh! I slept until 2pm, though. That made for a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time and it was a bit more difficult because the kids had already gotten off track for their daily schedule. It is so rough to rein them back in.

But I did and so now, the bathrooms are clean, the den is mostly clean (it was clean but then I brought in some groceries from the back of the van and they landed in the den instead of in the kitchen), the trash got taken out, the living room is done, our bedroom is looking much better, the guest bedroom is in good shape and the boys' room is done. Tomorrow (or after the movie tonight, depending on how well the kids go to bed) we need to get the little kids to clean their room, get the kitchen cleaned up, continue in our bedroom and then work on laundry and in the laundry room.

We have some things planned for tomorrow though too. We have the movie in the morning, then after that, I will be running JoNo over to play with his buddy, Con. While I am there, I will be dropping off our old stroller and carseat travel system that we had for Boo. He's three and a half now. He hasn't used the infant carseat in at least three years and the stroller in probably a year and a half. I think it's time to get rid of them. Plus, Con's mom is having a baby soon so it really works on many levels. She also has some living room lamps that she is getting rid of, so I will be picking those up for my living room. I love the fact that we are able to do this! Getting rid of what we don't need for something that we do. Totally awesome! It wasn't worked out to be a trade exactly, but that's kind of the way it worked out, which works for me!

Then Miss Punky gets to go to her "bess fren in whole wide whirl" house for a play date. I tell you, those two girls are like glue at school. They just love each other to pieces. It is quite adorable really. Her friend, we'll call her "Bess", I think had a birthday on Friday (or at least that is when her mom brought cupcakes for the class treat) so we will be bringing a gift for Bess with us when we go over there. I didn't even have to go out and buy one for her either, extra bonus. Last week, Punky had been invited to another child's birthday party, but because of snow and cold, we decided not to go. Well, that and the fact that I had forgotten to RSVP to the parents. But I did buy that child a gift before the RSVP was expected. Since we didn't go to the party and give that gift, Bess will get it instead. Which actually, I am quite okay with because it is a gift that I am certain Bess will like. Not sure about the other kid (because I don't even know who the other kid is.)

So, for a few hours tomorrow, we will have two kids out for arranged play dates, Natty will probably go play with a neighborhood friend and it will just be Hubby, myself and Boo, who should be napping at that point. So, that will give me some time to get some work done.

Then tomorrow evening, we will either have my mom come over to babysit (or have the kids stay the night at mother-in-law's house) so that we can go join one of our friends for birthday drinks. And by we, I mean, I will drink and Hubby will drive. That's just how we roll. I love the fact that Hubby doesn't drink and that I always have a designated driver if I need one.

So, that is our weekend. It is packed full and we have lots to do (both fun and work stuff) but oh, it will be well worth it! What are you doing this weekend?

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!