Dang it!!!

I already missed a day! I am helping the school host Bingo night tomorrow night and it has kept me busy on top of normal life stuff.

I will be back later to post Halloween pics! I had a couple of scary kids this year!!

The Green Monster Won't Leave!

I think it is time to seek some professional help for Luke’s jealousy. He is insanely jealous quite often about his sister for just about anything ranging from her now being taller than him to her sitting in the front seat. He wants to control her all the time. The other night we came home from baseball and Sage was still up even though it was past her bedtime and he went off. He started shouting directions at her to go to bed! Drew and I were sitting right there!


This morning the rage escalated pretty high despite my trying to calm him down and get him to identify the true feelings he was having. He couldn’t get past being angry. The kids were standing next to each other and I noticed she passed him up in height. We have talked about this over and over and explained to Luke that girls generally grow earlier than boys and more than likely, she would be taller than he was at some point. Luke can dish out the teasing and mean words but gets very angry when his sister or parents kid with him.

All I said to him was “Looks like your sister may be taller. You guys stand back to back and let me see.” He instantly got mad and Sage saw the weak point and said “Yea Luke, back to back!” I tried to cut it off there but he was mad and wasn’t about to let it go.

When I tried to talking to him, he began to cry and told me to let him go and he didn’t want to talk about it because he didn’t want to cry. He said “I’m in 5th grade and 5th grade boys don’t cry. Now leave me alone!” Where do boys get this idea? I explained to him for the hundredth time that it is okay to cry and it is okay to feel feelings. It was our job as parents to help him learn what his feelings are and how to express them. He still wouldn’t let the anger go.

He said he wanted us to punish Sage. He thinks that she never gets punished. What he doesn’t see is that he causes most of the trouble in our family. He lives by the idea that he will do what he wants and pay for it later. He has always been head strong like this but the anger is new. I saw it after his injury but it is so much bigger now that he has a sibling.

Oh, I wish there was a book that went with each kid! Tonight I will crawl into bed with him and hope to talk more about feelings and expressing anger. Press the point that hitting is sister or any other girl is NEVER allowed. Then I will love him and pray that the talk helped him in some way…

Stone Mountain

                                                            (This is carved into the rock)
Yesterday (OK, so it was a month ago!! I am just now finishing this post!)we visited this really cool place! It is a huge mountain made of stone and they call it...Stone Mountain! They have camp grounds, hotels, restaurants, a quaint little town and this really cool attraction area.

You take a tram/gondola up to the to top of the rock. There were some amazing views from up there!

Just about every month they have a different event happening up there. In September I took the kids up there for the Daisy Festival which is a huge craft fair. I read it is the longest running craft fair. It was enormous and I could have spent 2 days there looking at all of the vendors. Since I had the kids we mostly looked at all of the stuff they thought they "needed".

In October they have the Pumpkin Festival. There was a scavenger hunt for the kids to find candy, a pie eating contest which Sage despirately wanted to get picked for but wasn't and we did the Sky Hike.

In the attraction area they have a place called Sky Hike. They hook you up to a rope so you can navigate your way through an obsacle course. You tight rope walk, walk across long boards that are about 4 inches wide, walk across small circles and a bunch of other interesting methods to scare you half to death!

                                 (Luke tightrope walking)

I am not afraid of heights and love anything that is fast, goes upside down or spins. I have even jumped from a plane! So I wasn't at all concerned about this. It looked so easy standing underneath it. What was the worst that could happen? I fall and dangle from a rope at my waist? "Hey kids" I said, "Let's go to the 3rd level and start there!"

    (At this point Sage wanted to get down!)

We did about 3/4 of the 3rd level and Sage said "I want to get down!" She was shaking and her lips were shivering! It wasn't physically exhausting but mentally exhausting. By the time we eventually reached the end of the 3rd level I was ready to be done also. I think the next time we go we will start off on the first level and work our way up!

At night they do a laser light show on the rock. We had been there for hours that day and didn't want to wait for it to get dark so we missed the laser show. Next time...

The day after Christmas they somehow have snow up there. Not snow made from suds or snow to make icy snowballs with but SNOW! I am not exactly sure where they do it either...it can't be on that rock!

Here is the link to Stone Mountain http://www.stonemountainpark.com/ If you ever visit the Atlanta area be sure to visit Stone Mountain!

So I Am One Day Late!

In honor of National Blog Posting Month, I am really going to try this month to post a post each day. I have all sorts of posts swirling around in my head and some even make it to the Post-It! pad next to the computer....they just never make into the computer.

I may end up babbling on about stuff nobody cares about but I will do my best to post daily even though I am one day behind already! Let's just pretend it is Nov. 1st for just a minute and I will get out the next post that I have had sitting in my files for over a month for Nov. 2nd's post.

I challenge you to post each day also!

Going Pink

I am going pink this month for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Women, if you are over 40 (or in the state of FL...35) GET A MAMMOGRAM! I have had a scare before but after having an MRI, (let me tell you how fun it is to let your breasts hang loose while the technician positions you!) I am clear!

Don't ignore anything that seems "off". Get yourself squeezed half to death just to be safe!

Really???

The news just reported that there is not going to be any school tomorrow...

When we moved to Portland the Oregonians told us that it only snowed there every 5-7 years. It snowed there every single year we were there!!! As a matter of fact, there was a major ice storm in January of 2004 that shut down the entire city and left us without power for 3 days. A couple of weeks after that we went to Orlando on vacation and ended up staying for an extra week because we really liked the weather in January...it was 75 degrees! Hey, why don't we move here?? Great idea.

Fast forward 6 months and what do you know....there are 5 hurricanes in Florida. We were told by the Floridians that Central Florida never gets hit with hurricanes! The worst part about it was, Luke and I went through 4 of them alone because Drew was still in Portland! After about the 3rd one I was so over it! I didn't even get extra gas or water!! Luke was trying to get used to kindergarten and they kept canceling school!

And now here we are in Atlanta and we are experiencing some extreme weather! They say they have not seen rain and flooding like this since Hurricane Ivan. Lucky us!!

At first I thought it was perfect....Luke was home sick and the weather was yucky but now I am just sick of it! We have been trapped in the house since last Wednesday night.

I don't think it is us....right?? Global warming for sure!!

Flooded

Still coming down in buckets.....This morning our creek was flowing pretty good but nothing like this! Now it is in the neighbors yard and at the top of the line and overflowing into the sitting area of our yard (if you wanted to sit by the creek).

This was the creek over the summer....

This is it today. The boys (in the picture above) were standing where you see the water first coming out of the trees.This is the sitting area...right behind the two little bushes in the middle is covered in rock so you could put some chairs. I would say normally the ditch that the creek flows through there is about 10 feet deep. It is above that level and onto the yard!

Please Vote!!

Luke has been growing

his hair out since we

moved from Florida.

I won't sway the vote by saying which style I like better but please leave a comment and let us know which you like better....

Rain, Rain Go Away.....

Ok, I am beginning to feel like we are living in Oregon again. We haven't seen the sun for days and the rain keeps falling! Looking at the weather, I don't think we will see a full sunny day until next Monday! The rain is supposed to continue for another few days! They say we have received 15 inches of rain since Friday!

This morning Drew took Luke to the bus stop (after a major jealousy issue because his sister was staying home!!) and the principal drove by and told them that the buses would be delayed an hour and a half. No problem, we would just drive him at 9:30. After having him home for 5 days he was going to school!! They got all ready to leave and I thought I better check the district's website first and found out they cancelled school! What!!! Because it's raining??? I guess after living in the desert nearly all of my life and NEVER had school close EVER, I don't get why the schools close all the time for weather. Didn't these people walk up hill in the snow for a mile just to get to school each day?

I bet Sage is mad because she isn't the only one home! <>

The Crud!!

Last Wednesday night Luke woke up in the middle of the night vomiting. That started the fun! He was sick all of the rest of the week and most of the weekend. The worst part for him was the fever.

I got a little worried since there were two cases of Swine Flu that were reported in his school so far but after reading the CDC site it appears he just has the plain old variety.

Luckily the weather was crappy and baseball was cancelled so he didn't miss anything important. When I was at school last week his teacher told me she had 4 students out of her class. This is only Septemeber! What is the flu season going to look like once we crank up the heaters?

Yesterday was his first day out and it wore him out!

NOW....

Sage is sick! Last week after seeing all the fun Luke was having, she told Drew that it looked fun to be sick because you got to stay home from school and watch TV all day and eat whenever you want and got lots of attention. I had a feeling she would be pulling a little faking on us.

Yesterday afternoon she magically got a cough too. Then when she was supposed to clean up her room she didn't feel well. Hmmm....

But you can't fake a 101 fever or dizziness. Now that she has had Motrin she says she is feeling "much more better". Think she talked herself into being sick?

Little did she know that being home sick meant she had to stay in bed or on the couch sleeping. You usually don't feel too hungry and playing is totally out of the question! She is bored to tears and I have a feeling she will be feeling so much better later today so she can go back to school.

Speaking of school....read my next post....