Stage Fright

We've hit an all time low on the Mason fears. Thats right.. go ahead and add "stages" to his long list which consists of puppets, clowns, moonwalks, fastfood playgrounds and food. It was classic.. Kev and I were all ready with our video camera on, digital camera in hand and we notice that Ms Judy is literally pushing Mason up the stairs to make him follow the group. You will notice from the picture that he stood 8 feet away from the rest of the group. He also didnt sing one word until the last verse of the last song. He stood with his hands in his mouth. At one point he had both of his index fingers in his mouth pulling his lips in different directions. This would be one thing if my kid was shy, but this had nothing to do with being shy or being scared of being in front of a crowd. He was terrified of the actual stage.
 

9 Step Program

We are literally drowning in laundry here...Its beyond me how 4 people can create so much laundry in the matter of one day. I seriously hope that other homes go through the same laundry steps that we do.
Step 1: Wash clothes (wait a minimum of 3 hours)
Step 2: Wash again b/c you left it in the washer too long and they are starting to smell rotten. (I seriously did this 3 times just this week)
Step 3: Dry (wait one day)
Step 4: Hit the dry button again to get the wrinkles b/c you're feeling motivated and just stuck a new load in the washer.
Step 5: (this can go two ways- a: you lost your motivation and now you throw the clean clothes in a laundry basket to deal with later just so you can dry the other wet load. b: you are still feeling good so you take them out and fold them in neat piles on the couch. )
Step 6: Stack the different piles on top of each other and move them to the edge of the sofa so you can sit to watch TV (leave a minimum of 2 days)
Step 7: Take the large pile upstairs to the guest bed so that visitors don't see the clothes on the sofa and/or your husband doesn't give you that look of "what have you been doing all day?" when he comes home again.
note: during step 6-7 you can certainly take things off the piles as needed (ie. you're down to wearing your holy/stained crotch underwear or your children have no matching socks left)
Step 8: Hang up clothes or stuff as much as you can in drawers.
Step 9: Start all over again

10K

Well, we've officially completed step 2 on our way to running a half marathon. We (Derek, Rebecca, Kelly, Trey, Me and Kevin) ran a 10K in Alpharetta this past weekend. Its by far the longest I've ever run and Derek, Kelly and I all won third place in our age division! So sad that this time next year I'll be in the 30-35 year old division!!

Wallpaper from Hell

What may look to the naked eye a reasonably simple task has been the nightmare of my week. As you will see in the first picture we were sporting the 1989 floral wallpaper with the added bonus of a floral border to match. I decided this past weekend that I would jump into the 21st centry and strip down the wallpaper during the kids naptime and then slap up a couple of coats of paint at night after i put them down. Yeah, thats not exactly what happened. Just to give the abbreviated version..I began the wallpaper ripping on Monday which consisted of me drenching the walls with this solution and then using a scraper to pull it down. I had found this great stripping recipe online that was sure to work on "tough to remove" wallpaper. I think the previous homeowners that put this crap up used super glue and chose the wallpaper with 14 layers which my recipe didnt take into consideration. So as I stripped off layer upon layer (by this i mean ripped off tiny pieces) I began to see parts of the drywall which even i knew was a bad sign. After 6 straight hours of stripping (never thought i would begin a sentence with that) and spackleing the drywall, I finally had what looked like a blank canvas for my paint. So yesterday I start on part 2 of the walls from hell. I sand down the spackleing (which please note that this puts a layer of one inch dust on every square inch of your house) and get ready to paint. By this point I am not kidding.. i had already had a 2 sit down apology sessions with Mason where I told him Mommy was sorry for being ugly to him when he didnt do anything to deserve it. (which he reminds me of every 5 min-- "Mommy its not my fault that you are ugly to me") I go to paint the first wall and I'm almost done rolling the entire wall when i look over and literally see another freaking layer of wallpaper peeling off the wall. Where the heck is it coming from?? I think I had a mental breakdown.. all I remember is me crying and scraping down another layer of wallpaper that is covered in wet paint. Just about this time Kendall awakes from her nap and i can hear her screaming in the monitor which i proceed to turn off and pretend its not happening. Anyway-- long story short (well sort of) Kevin and I finished the last coat about 2am this morning and the saddest part is that the color isnt even what I really wanted-- but its staying. Now I am going to go get Kendall out of her bed where she has been for 48 hours straight (kidding) And by the way, yes i am going to replace the lovely crystal chandelier-- any of you could be the lucky recipient of it if you're nice.

Mason

Mason got his preschool pictures back and I thought they turned out cute-- its a good thing b/c i havent gotten his picture taken in over a year so it was well overdue. On another note- our 10K is in 2 weeks and i have been a little stressed b/c I had yet to run over 4 miles until today. I took the jogging stroller to the park today and ran 5 miles which i cannot even explain what a huge accomplishment it was for me. The only problem is tonight my knee caps are literally ready to fall off my legs.