Where oh where did I go?

My last blog post was from quite a while ago. I got into a funk and I just didn't want to write anymore. I'm sure it had plenty to do with me wanting to eat and sleep as much as possible. My mom even tried to convince me to keep up with my blog, and I told her no. My kids have inspired me to write again. I need a place to write down all of the funny stuff they say and do every day. I want to look back one day and read my blog and laugh at my past.

Maliq is now 5, about to start his second season of soccer, and has kindergarten roundup next week. Quin is almost 3. He's my crazy boy. He's very happy but he finds tremendous pleasure in belching and farting. Boys! And since my last post, we were blessed to add our baby girl, Maci to the family. Maci is almost 9 months old. She's trying to walk, but more importantly she's learning to defend herself from 2 big brothers.

A few recent funny things:

While I was driving the kids home from my mom's house yesterday, Maliq asked me, "Mommy, why do those people still have their Christmas lights up?" To which I replied, "I ask myself the same thing everyday buddy."

Fast forward to this afternoon. My mom had Maliq go outside to remove some snow from her deck. The boys did not come equipped with outdoor clothes today. I told my mom to tape plastic bags to his feet so he could try to keep his feet dry. My mom did this to us as kids all the time.
This is his, I'm not impressed with you right now face.

His response, "Seriously?"
He's 5, going on 15. Love him!

One Crazy Night

I've been wanting to post this for a while. It has been written for about 6 weeks. So many things have kept me from actually hitting the publish button.

Marques, the kids, and I all went grocery shopping a few weeks back. I usually try to get this task done on my Friday off but my day was already packed with other activities. Marques doesn't mind shopping, so he agreed to go when he got home from work. We went to a store that we don't typically go to, to do our shopping. While we were there we found a couple of Christmas presents and got what we needed to get by for the week. As we were checking out, we came across a cashier that seemed very frazzled. It almost felt like it was his first day, but I don't think it was. The lines were long and he was doing his best to get us in and out. One of the Christmas presents I was purchasing didn't have a barcode to scan. He had to call back to the department and get the code. After he rang it up, I noticed that the price was incorrect. I informed him of the matter and he became a bit irritated and didn't want to call back to the department. He told me I could just go to customer service when I was done for the adjustment. I agreed and let him carry on with his job. While he was bagging our groceries, he turned the bagging area ever so quickly that it threw our gallon of milk into the air. The milk exploded all over the floor and all over us. Needless to say, we felt pretty gross and nobody could seem to find a mop in the entire store. Everybody in line behind us was becoming angry, the cashier was frustrated, my husband was furious and the girl at customer service sat there and played with her finger nails. We finally were able to get out of there, but I still had to go to customer service for my refund.

The girl working at the service counter watched what had just played out with us and the milk and wouldn't even look up at the counter to help. I finally had to ask for her attention. She was angry with our previous cashier for not doing the price adjustment when we were with him. She was beyond rude with me. The store manager finally made it to the front of the store with a new gallon of milk for us. I made sure to let the store manager know about our awful experience, and he was rather cold with me as well. Needless to say, we will NEVER set foot in that particular store again.

After that mess we decided to run to KFC for dinner. It was right across the street and it was getting late. We needed a quick meal and to get home to put the boys to bed. We placed our order and the cashier told us that the potato wedges would be out in a minute. After 5 minutes I went and asked for our chicken that she'd already had sitting out so we could at least get started on that. She reassured me that the wedges would be out in just a minute. In the meantime, a patron of the restaurant saw what was happening and offered us his remaining wedges. It was such a gracious offer, an odd one at that, but the man was very genuine. Marques politely declined. After 20 minutes with no wedges, I went to the front counter demanding answers. Apparently only one of the fryers was working. How can you operate a fried chicken restaurant with only one fryer working? Nobody bothered to tell us that when we got there. We would have ordered another side had we known that. I was given a refund for our wedges, a free cake and after almost 30 minutes, some wedges right out of the fryer. After the night we had been having Marques and I proceeded to just look at each other and laugh. Although it had been one crazy night, one that we'll never forget, what was important was that we were all sitting together. We were happy, healthy and eventually full.What more could you ask for?

Here we go AGAIN!

On September 21, our lives changed again. Marques and I found out we were expecting another bundle of joy. I had been getting negative tests up until this night. I think I took 5 tests before I finally got a a positive. I was 11 days late and about to call the Doctor to request a blood test, since I knew something wasn't right.

This pregnancy has already been very different than my other 2. I had an early ultrasound after I first found out I was pregnant. I was having unusually strong cramping in my abdomen and the nurse suggested we do an ultrasound to make sure it wasn't a tubular pregnancy. From what the tech could see, everything looked good, but I was not as far along as I had thought I was. After meeting with my nurse the following week to go over my medical history, they decided to push my due date back a week. Most people wouldn't be okay with this, but being that this is my third and final pregnancy, I'm hoping that I wont have to be induced this time around.

On top of an early ultrasound, I've also had something I never had while pregnant with my boys, morning sickness. I didn't know a baby could make you feel so miserable. I ended up missing a little bit of work, and stayed on the couch for what felt like days. After an awful weekend of morning sickness, my cousin Melissa gave me her zofran to help with the nausea. I only ended up using it for 2 days before I started to feel better. I joke that the zofran scared my nausea away. Most days are tolerable now, but I still don't feel like myself.

I've since had another ultrasound. This is definitely my "naughty" baby. My appointment last week was the first appointment to listen to baby's heartbeat. The doctor tried to find the heartbeat for about 5 minutes and found nothing. She said everything looked right on track with the pregnancy but wanted to see if I could get in for a quick ultrasound to make sure it really was okay. I sat in the office waiting for the doctor with tears in my eyes. I had been feeling like everything was going fine with the pregnancy, but I was starting to doubt myself. This was also the first heartbeat appointment I had went to alone. Marques has come with me in the past for moral support in case something were to go wrong. They were able to get me in immediately and the ultrasound tech didn't have a problem finding baby or a heartbeat. I was relieved and teary eyed to meet my baby for the first time. I received a call from the Doctor's office today. The Doctor had reviewed the ultrasound and everything looked great. Baby's heart rate was 182, and they are actually moving my due date up another day. So on or around May 26, we will be meeting our little one.

I'm  growing anxious for the next ultrasound around 20 weeks. This will be our last baby, so I'm holding on to hope that we'll finally get our girl. If we don't, I'll be just as happy. I'm sure my house will be complete chaos with 3 boys running around, but we'll manage. Or I'll just move to them all to the basement. :)

Birchbox!!!!

I'm beyond excited to announce that I signed up to receive a monthly Birchbox subscription. For those of you who don't know what it is, I'll be receiving a box of  beauty samples for just $10 a month. I can't wait to try out some new products without the hefty price tag. I'll be blogging about my experience with the products and hopefully along the way find a few that I absolutely love.My First box should be arriving this week, so be on the lookout for an upcoming blog post about what is inside.

Mom Guilt

Maliq has been in the DeVos Children's Hospital twice in the last week. It was basically for a a severe cold and what I believed was an ear infection. He did a breathing treatment and had chest x-rays the first time he was there. We were very pleased with our experience. Everything from the Nurses to the Valet Parking left a huge impression with us.  Maliq got to visit with a therapy dog, watch Finding Nemo and Cars and even left with stickers and a slushy. When we left the second time he told me that the Children's Hospital was a cool place. I'm afraid he's just going to want to go there for some R&R in the future. Yesterday he finally finished his medicine and seems to be on the mend. Not knowing what is wrong with your child is an incredibly scary feeling. I've never had to take my kids to the hospital, let alone twice in one week.

Monday was the second time we were down at the hospital. We waited a much longer time to be seen since it was a lot busier than our first trip there. We didn't get home until around midnight. I knew no matter how tired I was, that I need to get into work the next morning since I've already used  most of my vacation days for the year. I felt awful making Maliq get up so early the next morning. I let him go to my mom's house in his pajamas. He convinced my mom for two days in a row to let him stay in his pj's all day long. I think he was milking his sickness. Last night as I was making him get ready for bed, he asked me if I would stay home with him tomorrow. I proceeded to explain to my 3 year old that mommy needed to go to work so we could pay our bills, something which he doesn't even understand. With big, sad, puppy dog eyes, he looked at me and professed that he misses me so much when I'm at work, and he loves me. Talk about making mommy feel GUILTY!  I love my children so much and wish that I could be home with them full-time. I reassured him that I would get to spend the next three days home with him. That seemed to make things a bit better.

Neglecting my blog already!

I've been MIA for a week or so now. All of the sudden my life seemed extremely busy (I even had a friend email me and ask if I died, due to my lack of Facebook postings). My oldest son, Maliq, was just recently in a 3 week class at the YMCA. I have found a new appreciation for working parents who seem to manage to get their children to practices and games right after work. A couple of days I had to leave work early just so I could get home, let the dog out, run to my mom's house to pick up the boys, and head to the Y. Some nights I left the class early and let my husband deal with it so I could go home and entertain my youngest, who wanted sooooooo badly to be apart of the class at the Y and to make dinner. I don't know how you moms do this with multiple children. I know I wont have a choice in the future but to figure it out, but it's a lot of work. Even though the class was only 3 weeks, I'm sort of relieved to have that over with. However, Maliq keeps asking when he is starting a new class.

I find a lot of joy watching my kids take part in activities. I know my future holds many nights of soccer, basketball, football and anything else they chose to do. Maliq pretty much likes all sports right now. After watching the Olympics he has suddenly taken an interest in diving (off  my couch) and tennis. He's typically into basketball and soccer, but I often hear him talking about playing hockey and golf too. I hope within the next few years he can narrow it down a bit.

It's a love story, baby just say yes!

Our love story is a bit comical. Marques and I met while shopping at Wal-Mart. His story may  be a little different than mine, but this is how I remember it.

It was a Friday morning, early spring 2005. I was shopping with my mom and my 6 month old cousin, Hunter at Wal-Mart. My mom brought it to my attention that some guy kept peering around the aisles to get a better look at me. (Kind of creepy, right?) I didn't notice him right away. Eventually I wandered off to go look for something, with my little cousin in tow. A few minutes later I was approached by this creeper tall, handsome fella. I wish I could remember the conversation word for word. I believe it started something like this, "Excuse me miss! I just wanted to tell you, you look very nice." I bought it, hook, line and sinker and I was immediately interested in continuing my conversation with him.  We continued to talk for a while. Near the end of our conversation,  I finally had to ask him if he had a phone. Thankfully I am a blunt person because I'm not sure he would have ever asked me for my number.  We had our first date a few days later at TGI Fridays, which is another funny story I'll save for another time. A year later we were engaged, and not even a year after the engagement, we were married. The rest is history. Never in a million years did I think I'd meet my future husband at Wal-Mart.

FYI- He swears he had met other women this way, but I'm not sure I believe him. :)