Mikey's perfect license plate

Too bad this is already taken, it would have been perfect for Mike!

Valentine's Day

Even though Mike is in Las Vegas, he hid some Valentine cards and treats for his girls with Luke. This morning we were presented with cards and candy. Thank you, Mikey! His being in Las Vegas for the weekend is the reason we celebrated last Saturday at Red Lobster. I am jealous, though, he had dinner tonight at Aurelio's Pizza. There are actually two in the area and we went to both when we were there last month. Aurelio's originated in Homewood, IL and is one of our favorite Chicago pizza places. He even sent me a picture of his pizza and his appetizer, which was fried ravioli. It looked delicious! Not to be outdone, we are having homemade lasagna tonight, that I made at Christmas time and put in the freezer. It may take forever to cook, however, since I forgot to take it out of the freezer until this afternoon.



Alex and Shauna surprised me by making some brownies today. I asked them to set the oven timer for 30 minutes because I wanted to take a short nap and then shower because we were going to Steven's new house for a little while. Apparently they decided to make brownies while I was sleeping and kept setting my timer for longer so they could be done before I woke up! I guess I got a little bonus nap time and I'm not complaining.

They cut the brownies with a heart shaped cookie cutter and put some on a fancy platter to take to Steven, which I thought was nice. Steven appreciated it and even hugged Shauna (although he called her Skeletor!). He also hugged me when I was leaving!

He and Will have been working on their room and it looks really nice. He even made his bed, which believe me is a total first for him! Poor Sassy is still scared about being in a new place and spends most of her time in the closet when she isn't hanging with Steven on his bed. I hope she gets used to it soon, I feel so bad. Steven's finger looks a bit better today. The swelling has gone down a bit and it isn't visibly throbbing anymore.

Capitals Game

Apparently, Mike is going to a Caps game tomorrow night. I'm not sure how I figured that out, he has only told us at least 10 times tonight!!!! Yes, we are all very jealous and he is sooo taking advantage of that fact.

My Husband

Now I have to admit that most of my posts about my husband have been somewhat negative. Well, he was acting somewhat negative, but has decided that he would like to change that. He has been working on it for several weeks now and really making a lot of progress. This weekend, he cooked a whole dinner himself! It was delicious, too. He did all the laundry. I am very lucky in that department, he usually does most of the laundry on weekends. Since our washer is broken, this involved trips to the laundromat. He also surprised me with a small bottle of Peppermint Schnapps to put in hot chocolate and chocolate soy milk. YUM! I had some in soy milk last night and it was so good. Then he gave me a back rub today. He made two fires this weekend for the kids. He even went to the store to get some Pepto Bismol for the dog's upset tummy. Things are really looking up. Thanks, Mikey!!

WEIRD stuff happening this weekend!

In addition to Hannah offering and actually following through with cleaning the powder room, she then pitched in to clean up the kitchen and family room.

I was actually able to scrub out the kitchen sink today, make my own lunch, and sit long enough to sort out the mail and flyers from the last month.

The weirdest thing of all is that there is a car in our garage! We moved into this house exactly 8 years ago this week and there has never been room for a car in our garage. Mike worked his butt off this weekend and did a great job. Steven and Luke helped a little, but Mike did the vast majority of work, I'm sure. There is still a ton of stuff out there that needs to be gone through, but this is a huge step forward. We freecycled more than a dozen bikes and toddler toys and threw out quite a bit of items that were junk.

Mike also fixed several bikes so that each kid has a working one now. Steven still needs to get some back brakes for his since he has been riding it without brakes for some time now. I've told him how dangerous that is, but as usual, anything I say to him falls on deaf ears.

School Supplies

Since I can't go shopping, Mike has taken over the back to school supply shopping this year. He took Alex and Hannah shopping yesterday and they each got some new jeans, since their school doesn't allow shorts. Hannah got two pairs and Alex got one. They did a great job picking them out and making sure they weren't too expensive (they used their own money for those).

Today, Mike took Alex, Hannah and Shauna shopping. They got backpacks and almost all of the other school supplies they needed. Shauna and Hannah got some shoes as well. I am proud of Mike, he did a great job. It is stressful and confusing to buy school supplies for a lot of kids and he handled it very well.

Las Vegas

Mike just got back from Las Vegas. He wants me to go with him, sometime, when he only has to go for a few days. I never really wanted to go there, but the pictures he took while he was there are pretty cool. There are a ton of really pretty fountains all over and I love water. The pool at the hotel he stayed at is absolutely gorgeous, it looks like Hawaii.

I would like to go and maybe now that Jack is home, I will be able to. It would be nice to get away with just Mike, since we don't really get to spend much time together at all. When we are together, we are usually either arguing about how to discipline the kids or watching tv. The last time we went away together was when we came to Virginia to look for a house, in January of 2000.

Disappointed

I'm disappointed because Mike was home for 4 days this weekend. I asked him to do several things around the house, help me clean out the pantry, move the two garbage cans to the side of the garage, change the kitty litters and do one other thing that I can't think of right now. He did do the kitty litters, which is great, but he didn't move the garbage cans. He completely refused to help me clean out the pantry because the kids always leave the door open and that is the reason for the mess. Why can't he understand that he has kids with disabilities. THEY CAN'T REMEMBER TO CLOSE THE PANTRY. It isn't that they don't want to close it, they are trying to disobey him or they just don't care, the CAN'T remember. Now I have the added stress of having to clean out the pantry all by myself.

In his defense, he spent more time with the kids and me than he has in a long, long time. He played Rock Band with us the other night and he walked over to the park for a few minutes to meet us when we were there with Tim and Tricia. He only spent about 10 minutes with us, but for someone who doesn't like to spend any time with us, that was a big deal. He also did laundry and some other things around the house, so I'm not complaining that he didn't do anything, but it is frustrating when he has so much time here and doesn't get everything done that we need.