I know I have to do it, but I am not feeling good about it at all!!

Elianna, (huge sigh) Elianna I really don't know what I am going to do with this child. For one thing she is very strong willed child and she is going to be the life of me....she's only 3...what am I going to do when she is a pre-teen...or worse a TEENAGER. Heck what is it going to be like when she starts school??? Will I be going to the school everyday because she won't behave?

I know a family closely that has a little girl the same age as Bethanie. When she was younger, she misbehaved ALOT. She would scream at her mom, she would do things that she knew she wasn't alowed to do, she would sneak and get into things that were not hers or that could hurt her (such as vitamins, she got into them at least twice, once eating over half of a large bottle of gummy bear vitamins). I remember being on the phone or being around them and thinking they just need to discipline her and be consistant. The mom would constantly threaten conciquences, but never follow through. If she did follow through, like making her stand in the corner, she wouldn't pay close enough attention and the girl would sneak out and the mom wouldn't notice or make her get back in the corner if she did.

Bethanie was, and still is, always very well behaved!!! Thank GOD! Then I had Elianna...from the very beginning she was LOUD and cried alot, the mom I mentioned would always tell me "she reminds me SO much of "sis". WHAT??? no way, maybe as a baby but she will NOT act like sis when she gets older. A few days ago when I talked to her on the phone, she said it again..."She reminds me so much of sis at that age". It kills me to hear that! And it reminded me of all the empty threats that I heard that mom throw out when sis was around Elianna's age. Am I guilty of that??? I know it doesn't work, kids won't take you serious if you threaten but never do whatever it is that you threaten to do. So that leads us (finally) to the point of the title of this post...

Yesterday Elianna was horrible, several times through out the day she screamed at me (which I absolutely HATE!!!!! I feel so disrespected by my own child when she does it) and I thought I have got to do something to make her realize that I am serious when I say not to scream at me. So I told her she had 3 chances, if she screamed at me or completely defied what I tell her 3 times, she would not get to go to the fair on Monday. She had been really excited about going after we saw some of the rides being set up on Saturday. Well it lasted probably less than 2 hours from when I told her about the 3 chances. So tonight, to show her I am serious, Bethanie and I along with my sister and 2 neices, are going to the fair. Elianna gets to stay home with her daddy. She already doesn't like it but I can only imagine what it's going to be like when we actually leave. And let me tell you...it is killing me, I can feel the tears coming to my eyes as I write about it. I even gave her another chance last night, her and Bethanie got upset that Elianna wasn't going to be allowed to go today, Elianna told me she would be good, she promised. I told her she had one more chance. If she was good, I would go ahead and let her....about 10 minutes later, she screamed at me because she didn't want to go to bed, I reminded her about her promise of being good, so she hit me (I hate that just as bad as the screaming). So she is NOT going! I want my girls to have fun, to have great memories of their childhood, but it's no fun to any of us when her and I are constantly battling.

So tonight Bethanie and I will be going to the fair and we WILL have fun. Hopefully Elianna will understand and her behaviour will improve at least a little, so that we can all go to the fair at least one day this week. I hope if I see anyone I know at the fair that they don't ask where Elianna is, I would hate to start crying at the fair...oh or feel like the worst mom in the world!

Hair bow options

Here are the options for types of clips to put them on

Alligator clip

French clip

hair bands (for pony/pig tails)

Or I can put them on a strtchy lace head band for babies without much hair.

And the winner is......

It's the end of the Bloggy Giveaway carnival! So I go to have ONE of the girls pick a number out of a shoe box and they both wanted to...ok, I gave in, so we have TWO winners instead!!!!!

Here's all the #'s in a box, do you see yours?

I shook the box up real good, had the girls close their eyes Elianna picked:
#47 Gina

and Bethanie picked:



#49 Karen of Sillymonkeez



Congrats to both!!! Please give me a little while to get the bows done after contacting you both. This coming week is going to be a BUSY one, I am not sure I will be able to get them done but I will get them done as soon as I can.



Thanks to all of you for commenting!! I have really enjoyed reading your comments and your blogs (for those with blogs).

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival

Since I have discovered the Bloggy Giveaway Carnival at http://www.donttrythisathome.typepad.com/bloggy_giveaways/ I have really enjoyed myself going through some (not enough hours in the day to go through all of them) of the giveaways and entering to win a bunch of great stuff but I have felt bad that I was entering but not giving so decided I would try it.



I will give away a set of corker hairbows that I will make. Similar to the ones in the picture below. I will let the winner choose between a smaller pair or one larger bow. And I will also allow the winner to have some choise (from what I have on hand) in the colors of the hairbow(s).



To win simply leave a comment and let me know what color combinations your child wears the most. Anyone can win. Make sure there is a way to contact you if you are the winner. I will have one of my girls pick a number on Friday, August 1, 2008. Good Luck!

And for many, many, MANY more great giveaways visit http://bloggygiveaways.com/

Today is...

My birthday! I am 34 today, I still feel young. So far today my sister brough me doughnuts this morning when she brought her kids, my favorite kind ;D they were YUMMMMMMY but I am sure not helpful on this road to loosing weight but oh well, you only have one birthday a year, right. I asked Elianna and Alyvia (my oldest niece) if they knew who's birthday was today. Alyvia yelled out "It MY birfay!!" followed by her jumping up and down saying it over and over again,lol. Then Elianna said "It Mommy's?" I just smiled real big at her and she said "I wanna buy mommy a dwess". I said ok then told her to ask Daddy for the money for it, lol. But she didn't like that (probably because daddy is at work and when she wants something she wants it NOW if not sooner) and said "No, mommy give me money!" In her usual demanding tone of voice.

My neices are the only kids I have today, other than my own of course. And it's a BEAUTIFUL day so we are headed to the park for a picnic lunch. I should have some pictures to share later today.

Me playing around and chores for the girls

For Mother's Day DH bought me Photo Shop Elements. I had been wanting something like it for a while but never knew which program would be easy enough, yet still do some of the "special" stuff that I was wanting it to. I haven't done a whole lot with it yet (just finally got it loaded on the computer about 2 weeks ago) but tonight I played around with it a bit. Here are some things I did.

This is the original picture

I just loved how "old fashioned" looking this water fountain looked so here are some things I did with the picture.... First turned it black and white then brought out the colors in the tiny flag and the fountain.

Then I really played around with the colors. I think I like this one best.

This one I didn't do tonight, I did it quite a while back when I had the free 30 day trial of PSE so I could see if it was for sure what I wanted. When I figured out how easy this was I was convinced. I had wanted to do this to my own photo's since Sears Portraits did this to a picture of Bethanie when she was 3. I think if I softened this picture a bit, it would make it even better. I just have to figure out how to do that now.

This one was really cool bringing the color out in it. To see it go from B&W to the bright colors of the rainbow and the girls skin and swim suits was like that one commercial on TV. This pic makes me think....Children bring color to our world :)

So the girls started doing chores tonight. I had wanted to start them at the beginning of summer but seemed like there was always something going on and the time never seemed right. So today Elianna put the clothes from the washer into the dryer. Both girls dried the dishes. And while I played with the pictures above, Bethanie washed the dishes from dinner. The funny thing about it...THEY LOVED IT...you would have thought they were given a new game to play. They even started to fight a little because they both wanted to dry the dishes :D I gave them both a towel and they went at it like it was the best game ever. WOO HOO, now if only their excitement for chores will last :) So why is it that all these years I have been doing it all????? Silly me, I could have been laying back, eating bonbons, watching my favorite tv shows instead, lol.

I'm SOOOO ticked off...

at my husband, the old frog!!! I usually don't vent about him on here but today I just have to! This week has been so busy for me and my girls. We had bible school at our church, I helped out ALOT with decorating, crafts, snacks, and I taught 2 nights. I only saw DH pretty much in passing the whole week. Then yesterday we (not him, he spent the day at home playing his game) went over 2 hours away to the Creation Museum (very, VERY cool place but PACKED on Saturdays) to wrap up the week of Bible school. Dh had gotten free tickets to a Cincinnati Reds game for Sunday (today). All week I had dreaded it, I knew I was just going to be really tired and didn't like the idea of driving over 2 hours each way again after just doing it on Saturday, also I was frustrated at him because everyday this week he had done something that he KNOWS I hate (I won't get into what IT is because that would just lead to this post being MUCH too long). BUT when I asked him a few times through the week about what day/days we were going (he got tickets for next weekend too) he kept saying he wanted to go to both. No hesitation, he acted like he was looking forward to it. So I sucked it up and actually started looking forward to it, after all it was going to be just me and him, a day with no children after a week centering around them, it would be a nice break, I was just going to over look the IT that he did all week.



We got home late last night, after midnight after a nonstop day of the museum, wet playground, walk by the lake to feed the geese, Chuckee Cheese, then the long drive home. Had to completely inconvenience my mom (who went with us yesterday) to take the girls home with her to spend the night. I was TIRED. But I set the alarm to get up early today. I SO didn't want to get up when it went off but I did. I took a shower, shaved my legs (I don't do this nearly as often as I should), got all lotioned up, and he came to the door. We ended up "spending some time together" and it was great. As he was walking out of the room I asked "so what time are we leaving?" and his response..."I don't really feel like going." WHAT???? he said it wasn't that he didn't WANT to, it was that we really didn't have the money to go. I tell him I already filled the van up with gas and I had some cash left over. He said he would rather save the gas and save the money for next weekend because he was really wanting to go to the night game. I told him I would be getting paid for babysitting before next weekend so I would have extra money. Nah, it had nothing to do with the money...he just didn't want to go, he wanted to stay home and play that stupid game of his (world of warcraft, I am REALLY growing to HATE that game). After about 2 minutes of sitting in the bedroom thinking about how I really NEEDED this day with him, I went in to find him ALREADY playing his game and told him "let's just go, we already got gas, we got a babysitter, we can eat at McDonald's or somewhere else cheap, we can do it with out spending much money at all today. Then next weekend we can spend a little more money. I just want to spend the day with you." No! So then I got ticked, he was putting that STUPID game before me again, seems to be happening more and more here lately. I go in, have a little cry, decide it's a huge waist of $45 tickets for really good seats (he got them free from work) so I go ask him if he's sure we aren't going, he just gives me a look. So I call my dad, he's out of town, call my brother-in-law, he can't find anyone to go with him, so I give up. Matt says something about do you have the directions, me still fuming say why, that ticks him off, I said so are we going to go, and he snaps "if your going to act like this all day, I guess I am going to have to." Oh no! That just ticks me off EVEN worse than I already was. So I storm out of the room.

The more I thought about it the madder I got. So finally I went in and went off on him. Told him exactly how I felt about not really wanting to go at first but then looking forward to going so we would have an "US" day. I told him how frustrated I was at him for the IT he did all week but how I was willing to just let it go so we could have fun together. I told him if it wasn't for him doing that we would have had plenty of money to go. He tries to deny it saying he didn't spend any money for it, I KNOW he was lying and told him so, he didn't deny it, he knew he was caught. I got on the computer for a little while to calm myself down, then went in and layed in bed. I fell asleep, woke up and it was 2pm! I had slept for over 4 hours. Called my mom to tell her we didn't end up going and told her I would come pick the girls up in a little bit. I felt better after waking up, didn't feel as mad. I thought we can still do something so the "us" day isn't completely lost. So I go in where he is and ask him if he wants to go get something to eat. "No, I'm not hungry" UGH, "well we don't have to go right now", "nah, I don't want to". UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! That just makes me mad all over again.

So I wait till I am not so mad and I leave to go pick up the girls. I kept thinking how, since he is such a butt, the girls and I will just go do something fun. I get to my mom's, walk in, Elianna sees me and says "uuuhhhh, I don't want to leave, mommy you leave, me stay here with mamaw". Bethanie doesn't want to leave either. Oh, I felt so loved and wanted today, NOT!!!! I seriously had to just walk out of the room and turn my head because I could feel tears coming to my eyes. Bethanie got her shoes on and went out when I said lets go, but Elianna well it was a battle, just as it usually is with her. She just kept crying and saying "I don't wanna go with you".

A couple miles down the road she fell asleep. Bethanie and I decide we want to go get something to eat and get ice cream. We get there and Elianna will not wake up. I ordered what I knew she would want then sat her down in a booth so I could carry the food. She screams. I fight with her for a few and finally am able to go get the food. Nothing made her happy, she didn't like the drink, she didn't want her hot dog on a bun, she wanted a spoon for her applesauce, etc. Finally she eats and starts acting better. Then it was time for ice cream. I give her the options for what she wants. She decides on a vanilla cone, I asked her a couple times if she was sure, told her what Bethanie and I were getting, yes, she still wanted a vanilla cone.....that is until she got it...."I don't want this, I want what Bethanie has" uugghhh.

As we were about to finish up Bethanie notices that the sky had turned really dark, she knew a storm was coming. She has recently developed a HUGE fear of storms, so she starts crying and pacing the floor. I gather up our left overs and trash so we can hurry up and get out of there before it starts raining. As soon as I was out on the road I knew I should NOT have left that building. It turned out to be a REALLY bad storm. The wind was blowing, the rain was coming down in sheets extremely hard. I was trying to listen to the radio to make sure there was no tornado warnings/watches but I guess the weather was so bad, the radio kept going to static when the weather advisories would come on. I had to pull over 4 times because it would get to raining so hard and the wind blowing that I couldn't see and didn't feel like I could control the van well enough. Bethanie in the mean time is all huddled in a little ball in her booster seat, with her head between her knees and her hands over her ears all while she is crying and rocking back and forth. I didn't let her see it but I was extremely SCARED too. There was a little pond a ways from the road in a field we passed (before the rain started coming so hard) that had WAVES, I mean it looked like the ocean the waves were so big, I had never seen anything like it. I reached back and held Bethanie's hand till the wind started blowing us so hard that I felt like I was loosing control. Finally we made it home, safe and sound. Bethanie and I cuddle on the couch to watch a movie all while DH is, 10 hours after he first started, STILL PLAYING THAT STUPID GAME!!!!! It was such a lovely day. The only good things....the snuggles with Bethanie and the Thin Mint GS cookie blizzard I got from DQ, YUMMMMY.

I just hope and pray that tomorrow is a better day.