Ghetto Hoo-Ride

Our family has been in need of a new vehicle for a long time. I've just been too cheap to admit it. Who cares if we didn't all fit in it, the air conditioning and heat didn't work, the cd player was broken, the vhs player was broken, there was a huge crack in the windshield, and the power steering belt, that also controlled the coolant, fell off every other week, resulting in the van over-heating and needing to be towed home? We didn't have a car payment and that, my friends, was all I cared about.

I guess Adam had had enough, after being towed home twice in one month. He pulled the we're getting a new vehicle and I don't care what you say. He was right. It was definitely time.

We started our car search with a few must-haves. First, air conditioning. We haven't had an air conditioned car since 2005. I'm for reals! I was pregnant for 3 of those past summers. I remember, when I was pregnant with Jude, the temperature was 100 degrees with high humidity and I had to take Marky home in the middle of the day, on route 51 in Pittsburgh, going to the South Hills. If anyone has driven on this road, you know I had to stop at a red light every 5 seconds. It was so hot and humid that I let Marky, Jagger, and Jet wear nothing but underwear and diapers; and at every stop light I turned around and sprayed them with a spray bottle full of water.

Lesson 99: spraying your kids down like a bad dog, because you don't have any other way to cool them off in your car = white trash

The next thing on our list, seating for 8 or more. I told him we needed something that at least sat 9, but all we could find were those 15 passenger vans, and all the reviews we read said they did horrible in the snow. HA! We live in Pittsburgh.......on a hill! Adam said he didn't want a "Yoder-toter" anyway.

Adam searched for weeks, until he found a really good deal on a used Ford Expedition. It sat 8 and had 4-wheel drive. We drove all the way to Ohio to check it out. Adam fell in love immediately. All I could see was the price of gas. (It actually isn't too bad. I was pleasantly surprised.) Needless to say, we bought it. Here it is.

On the way home, Adam kept going over the speed limit. It wasn't his fault. The ride was so smooth. Nothing like the van that shook violently after you hit 60 mph, shaking your brain loose. I finally told him, "Please be careful in this thing. The police are going to be looking for a reason to pull you over."

"Why would they want to pull me over?" he asked.

I chuckled, "Because it looks like a druggie-hoo-ride."

"No it doesn't." Adam got defensive.

"Honey, there's no Ford emblem on the front, like the person who owned it before wanted people to think it's an Escalade, the front windows are extremely tinted, and we have rims for crying out loud! This used to be a druggie-hoo-ride!"

Adam started to laugh. "Yeah, it probably was."

The funny thing is, I'm the one who got pulled over. It wasn't even a month after we bought it, when I was driving down my own town's street, I passed a police car that busted a U in the middle of the street just to pull me over. I wish everyone could have seen this officer's face when he peeked in the back of my vehicle to see a car full of children.

Lesson 100: getting pulled over, because your car looks like a drug dealers, and surprising the officer, because it's obvious the only kind of dealin' you're doing, is dealin' with your ridiculous life, and he can read that ALL over your face = white trash

He gave me a warning, and made Adam remove the tint from the front windows. Now it doesn't look as suspicious. We definitely need to get one of those family stick figure decals for my back window. That way the police know we need the car for the seats, not because we gangsta.

But hey, it's got air!!!

Trash Tree

The Christmas tree is one of our family's favorite traditions. We bundle up every year and head to Grupps Christmas Tree Farm. These very sweet people hand us a saw and a cart, and send us into a field to pick out and cut down the tree of our choice. The kids love this. I love that it's such a safe environment that I don't have to worry about my kids running ahead and losing themselves in the labyrinth of trees. Not that they are ever hard to find, I usually follow the loud squeals of delight and trail of snow angels made between trees.

This is the tree Adam and I picked out.

I called the kids and told them to hurry up because Dad was cutting down our tree. They all ran, screaming with excitement. I wish I could have gotten their expressions when they saw this pathetic twig. We even took the joke so far as to make them pose with the tree so I could take a picture. They were so depressed. They didn't find this as funny as Adam and I did.

After the kids realized we weren't serious about that tree, their spirits were renewed. We trudged through snow for a long time before finding the best tree for our house. Adam cut it down with Stone's help.

We took our tree home and decorated it the next day. (The day we got it, Adam threw the tree in the house and went to work. He doesn't have ANY days off this month.) Jude and Jovie really enjoyed the decorating this year, but they still don't get all the rules of tree decorating. First we had to explain to Jude that we only had a certain amount of ornaments and a whole tree to cover.

Then, I've had to tell them every day since, that just because something has a hook or something resembling a hook, that doesn't mean it's an ornament. Every day I come down to find random crap hanging on our tree's bottom branches. First, Jovie found a Halloween spider and hung it up. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a big hairy spider. Then, Jude made paper monkeys at pre-school. Notice the hook shaped tails? The thing that took the cake was when Jude found a piece of cardboard that was connected to a pair of gloves, price tag still on it, and hung it on the tree, just because it had a hook. I told him it wasn't an ornament and we had a 15 minute argument about it. He just kept insisting, "Look at the hook!"

Lesson 98: hanging Halloween decorations and garbage on your Christmas tree = white trash

For all you wondering, yes, they are still there. It makes for good conversation.

Merry Christmas!!

Pictureka!

I admit that I have been a tad more stressed lately. I'm also aware it has affected my outward appearance. Thinking about spending the time to do my hair, put on make-up, or even pick out clothes that match makes me tired. I did NOT know, however, how bad I must look until today.

Our kids have a card game called Pictureka!. It has cards with random pictures and you can play several different kinds of games with the same deck of cards. My boys love it.

Today while they were at school, Jovie sat at the kitchen table looking at the cards while I threw beans and meat in a crock pot for chilli. I heard her exclaim, "Oh, yes," and the sound of her running toward me. She rounded the corner with one of the cards in hand. Smiling proudly, she said, "Mom, look. It you!"

Here it is.......

Lesson 97: your daughter thinking you look like a cave man = white trash

I think I'm more disturbed that this dude has a five-o-clock shadow. What's up with that? I don't know, there were so many cards to choose from. I think if I had to pick a card from that deck that showed what I've looked like lately, I probably would have chosen this card.......

Yes, this is really a card.

Puppies

People tell me all the time that we need a dog. Why would I need a dog when I have my kids? Today alone Stone has chewed on multiple shoes, and ate an important document. Jude has acquired a phobia of the bathroom, and refuses to open the back door by himself, so I have to let him out to pee every few hours. Not to mention, Jovie has growled at me, bit Jude, ate off the floor, and peed in a box, on the floor, and on my computer chair (yes I sat in it before I noticed) all within 4 hours of her waking up this morning. Who needs a dog?

Lesson 96: not needing a pet because your children are less trained than a 6 month old puppy = white trash

Pants

Pants are my arch nemeses. I hate them, but I obviously can't live without them. At this moment in time, I own two pairs of jeans, and neither of them fit me properly. Jeans are by far my least favorite bottom. I wish it were socially acceptable to wear yoga pants to every occassion. They may not be attractive, but I'm comfortable.

Yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself some jeans. Adam has been after me to do this for a couple of months now. I dropped Jude off at preschool, then took Jovie and Stone to the mall so I could go to Aeropostal. They are the only kind of jeans that have fit my big butt, oompa-loompa legs in the past.

I went in and they had a whole rack on clearance. Oh yeah! I picked two pairs up and went to the check out. Trying them on in the store wasn't going to happen. Paying for the pants was enough of a hassle with both kids throwing a tantrum. Even though I was tired and had thrown my neck out again, because my double stroller broke, I still left feeling great. I haven't had a new pair of jeans since 2006!

The honeymoon ended quickly after I got home and tried them on. The first pair were a standard boot cut, but it had distress lines around the hip area, and it made my hips that birthed 6 children look more like it was 52 kids. No thank you. Who wants to draw attention to that area? I sadly threw them back in the bag to be returned.

I still had hope. I pulled on the next pair. They fit, but the top was a little lower than I like them, and my stretched out underwear (I haven't bought underwear in a while, too) stuck out of the top. If I bought some new underwear they would be ok. Yeah, the top seemed to fit, my hips looked proportioned. Then I looked down. Ewww.....skinny jeans. These would be ok if the bottom half of my body weren't so incredibly unproportioned. My hips and thighs are massive, my legs are short, and my feet are unbelievably long. In skinny jeans I looked like one of those ballon crafts where you dress balloons up like people.

Lesson 95: the bottom half of your body being shaped like a balloon person craft = white trash

Curse you jeans! You may have won this time, but someday!!!

McDonalds Butt

Yesterday Adam told me, "Your butt is still like a McDonalds Meal, it just isn't super-sized anymore."

Lesson 92: your husband thinking of a McDonalds Value meal when he thinks of your body = white trash

The Tutu Terror

I've had four other kids go through their terrible 2's, but none compare to Miss Jovie. This curly haired ball of crazy is quickly destroying my house and my sanity. The weird thing is, she is ten times worse when she puts on a tutu, which she has been adamant about wearing at all times. She wears them with nothing, she wears them with a sweatsuit. It doesn't matter, it just has to be on.

Last week she successfully destroyed my laptop and the keyboard to our desktop. We were without a computer for a couple of days until we bought a new keyboard. My laptop is toast, though. I opened it one day to find the screen covered in orange crayon. When did she even have time to do it? I have no idea. She's a crayon ninja! Seriously, my house is covered in Jovie doodles, and I don't know how she's doing it. I rarely let her out of my sight. It's not like she tries to be sneaky about it either. She's potty training right now, and she announced, while coloring on paper at the table, that she had to pee. I quickly snatched her up and ran her to the bathroom, with a crayon still in her hand. She sat on her little potty, peed, smiled, then turned and scribbled on the wall. It was like she couldn't help it, her art couldn't wait.

Anyway, back to my laptop. I have a hard time putting away laundry unless she's upstairs with me, but the other day she contently watched an episode of Dora with her brothers, and I sneaked upstairs to try and put a dent in the mounds of clean clothes that needed put away. I put away 1/4 of a load when I heard Jovie cackling like some crazed person in a padded cell. I ran downstairs to find her typing away on my computer. I snatched it from her, and closed it up. I had been working on my book, so I knew she had probably typed all kinds of jibber-jabber and that upset me enough, but I opened it and the screen showed nothing but a weird snow, like t.v. I gasped and closed it, giving Jovie the look of death. I ran upstairs and opened it again. This time my book showed itself, and I was relieved to see Jovie only added a couple of numbers and letters. I tried to delete them, but it turned out to be some sort of code and pulled up some random search, and the first paragraph of my book became the size of half the screen and began scrolling itself up and down the whole manuscript. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't click anywhere in the document. I powered it down, not knowing what else to do.

The only thing I can do now is use Word. That would be alright if I could save what I typed, but it won't save on anything but its internal hard drive. Awesome. Thanks Jovie.

Lesson 93: a whole house being terrorized by a toddler in a tutu = white trash

You know it's bad when Jagger came home from school the other day with a drawing of our family. I'll let it speak for itself.

Lesson 94: kid drawings of your family where your daughter is drawn looking like the Tazmanian Devil = white trash

That's right Jovie, I got my eye on you!