Marchie's World

As much as I love the little babies, there is a lot to be said for having two kids that are getting old enough to do things without assistance and enjoy things for what they are, not just being present with the family because you are being carried/dragged around. Tonight our family went to see Tangled for free movie night at the Drive-in. The last time we went (mind you it was the summer before last that we went) Archer slept in his car seat the whole time and Rachel was not as into the movie and just wanted to eat popcorn. This time Archer was eating all the snacks and Rachel could barely tear herself away from the screen to climb back to get stuff out of the cooler.

So I meant to get the laundry folded after we put the kids to bed, but that didn't happen and I don't think I should start now.

So on top of starting to keep this updated on a regular basis, I need to get our photo site up to date as well. I have come to the conclusion that I have a problem. I take waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to many pictures. Oh well.

Today we had our MOMS Club Easter/"Spring" party, held at one of the families' homes. It was definitely the best attended MOMS Club event I've ever been to, with a count of 17 moms (with an average of 2 kids each). We had lots of snacks, some crafts, books, an egg drop/hunt, and even a visit from the Easter Bunny himself. It was definitely nice to meet some new faces, and see some that we haven't seen in a while.
I made the kids wait when we got home to open up and go through their goody bags from the party until we got some stuff done. I REALLY needed to go through the snow stuff to see if it fit them, since we haven't had them out (playing) in the snow ALL year (SAD!!). Luckily it looks like we can make do with everything, but I've put out feelers to borrow some boots as the ones we have are not really the right sizes right now.


Afterwards, I asked Rachel to pick up her room (we've been working on trying to keep things at a minimum level of destruction on a daily basis) and she completely melted down because she wanted 'help' (which means she wants me to do it for her) and there was too much work, yadda yadda. Really it was just a bunch of dirty clothes on the floor, a bit of dress up stuff and maybe a couple of toys out, so it wasn't too bad, it just looked bad. She continued to carry on, then came down to say she wanted to lay on the couch to rest, which I saw as another ploy to get out of doing her work, so I told her if she was really tired, then she should take a nap in her bed, if not to keep working. A little more from her then she disappeared upstairs. Then her brother went to the front door and was tapping/lightly banging on the wall, so I asked him to (please) stop, so it died off pretty fast and got quiet. Well I look over and see this:
Then I realized how quiet it was upstairs so I went to check it out and found this:

I guess they were tired. Really glad I didn't let them have any of the candy in their goody bags before this event. Then Rachel got her room picked up in about 5 mins time when she woke up and all was wonderful in the world again (for now). We made some dumplings and green beans for dinner while Archie went to his running club. The end of another good day.

Just about 18 mos since my last post. I guess it's bad when you don't even recognize your own blog page. I forgot that I had redone the page design around the time I made my last post. I wonder if I can do better than that going forward. That probably means pretty pedestrian entries, but if I don't post every day, then I probably will lose track again. Sad but true. So, I'm going to try Jenn's '5 minutes a day' method.

Today I had a very busy day. To rewind a bit, I bought a Groupon about 3 months ago for a photography workshop being held at UNLV's campus. I've really been wanting to delve a little deeper into my photography skills, and learn how to really use my camera instead of just always being in point and shoot mode. (Anyway...) I got this Groupon, and proceeded to forget about scheduling it pretty much immediately. Groupon occasionally sends you reminder emails to use your deals before they expire, so I realized last week that this one was expiring on 4/12/11 (today). Yesterday I called so I wouldn't miss out, and found out that TODAY was the last workshop being offered at all (I guess these guys travel around doing these workshops all over). So from around 2pm yesterday, until I had to leave for our school's parents' meeting for the evening, I was trying to figure out how I was going to be able to make it happen.

After many emails and phone calls, I was able to arrange for one MOMS Club friend to take Archer for the whole morning and Rachel's classmate's mom was able to bring her to school (which is from 9-12) and home again so I could be half an hour away (in clear traffic) across town from 8:30 to 12:30. What a relief that was, now it was just up to me to be able to get there in time, which I did (but only just). Unfortunately the parking where we were was all metered, and at like $1.50 an hour, so it took quite a few quarters and a couple of trips out to feed the meter, not to mention that the info desk would only give you $2 in change at a time. (It would be nice if they could just get those new meter kiosk machines that many cities have now where you can just pay at a little machine...but anyway.) Not expensive, just a pain.

The workshop was quite good actually. I think I learned at least a couple of new things that I hadn't at least known a little about before. Now it's just up to me to actually go out and try to experiment a bit before I lose it all from the sieve that is my brain anymore. I do have some incentive to try a few things out soon because I was asked to take portraits of the kids on Rachel's soccer team so we don't have to hire a professional (and the City of North Las Vegas hasn't arranged for one). Hopefully this all works out, as I'm a little nervous that they won't turn out well. Well, I'm not worried that the pictures won't come out, I just want them to be something nice that the families will actually want to print and be proud of.

Afterwards I picked up Archer then went to take advantage of a deal I read about on a couple of blogs: http://www.couponingtodisney.com/2011/04/11/reminder-best-buy-get-incredibles-and-cars-on-blu-raydvd-2-movie-tickets-to-see-cars2-for-just-21-98/ Which failed miserably for me as Best Buy claimed to not be able to take coupons AND give the $10 discount. I was pretty annoyed at this point because it took them forever to find one of the movies (like half an hour!), so I just said forget it, and left because I had to get Rachel, get home for her to change so we could get to a classmates' birthday party. I think I'm going to go to the other Best Buy and see if they'll honor them though, it's pretty annoying when one store decides they don't want to take coupons without backing it up in writing.

The kids had a blast at Bekem's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese's while the other moms and I were herding them around. Though it was a bit hectic and exhausting (as Chuck E Cheese almost always is) after an already busy day, I was very happy to not have to cook dinner, and the kids went right to bed, and a bit early to boot.

Now I am just trying to unwind and organize my thoughts and game plan(s) for the next day or two as we have more fun craziness (or is it crazy fun?) before the week is done.