.canceling this weekend!

WTF.. where has this week gone?? seriously. This f&*%$d up weather has got me all screwed up! Not to mention my computer has gone a bit wonky on me! One of my fans or some shit is going out. UGH!You see i was gonna make y'all this nice cute button for my blog.. but old mr. dumb ass computer decided against that and shut down before i saved the page with the instructions on how to do it. So until i find that page again.. umm y'all are gonna have to deal with out one!
 I'm having mommy issues too. Not trying to make excuses or anything but  My ex jackass decided to let me know this last weekend that now that he has his own place ( with his Gf and her 2 kids) that he wants our son, my oldest. to start staying the night with him every other weekend. Now thats our custody agreement but i had found a way around it with his last Gf. then he was living with his mom, then a funky alcholic roommate, then his mom again. so i always had a way around it for the past 3 years. NOW i don't. and to be completely honest i don't like it.Not one single bit! So i started thinking and i realized that  the weekends he wants are the weekends he doesn't work. BUT they are also the weekends the my sons best friends are at their dads.. the only weekends he can go stay the night over there.. He doesn't go to the same school as them anymore so he doesn't get to see them on a regular basis. So i proposed to my ex that the boy stay with him every other Friday night.. that way he can go to his friends on Saturday night and go to church with his friends Sunday! PLUS that way he would get to go to church because if he stays with his friends they always take him to church with him and he goes on the weekends hes with me. Am i being selfish? I just don't want him hurt like he was with his fathers last GF who had kids. Or maybe i just don't want him to get comfy with his soon to be step mom ( which he doesn't know that yet)!I guess im just gonna have to put on the best mommy face i can muster on Friday when his father comes to get him. GOD I'm gonna miss him!

A surprise in the mail!

I love getting things other than money sucking bills in the mail! Don't you??

So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when i  was given a package from my oldest son when he came in from getting the mail!1 I got that fluttery excited feeling in my tummy. i didn't recognize the sender! I kept saying hmm who could this be from.. wonder what it is and doing my happy dance until my kids finally yelled "MOM JUST OPEN IT!!!!"

The postmark said UNITED KINGDOM..

That got me even more excited.. i asked my son all gaspy like.. 

"did the queen finally claim me as her long lost grandchild and send me a gift??" 

he just laughed and rolled his eyes and told me to open the package already!

So i opened the package.. it felt like a shirt.. so i opened it super slow for the sake of the kids..

Guess what.. IT WAS A SHIRT!!!!!

with this ADORABLE MONKEY on it!!

No, it wasn't from the queen.. BUT it had a monkey on it so i was tickled anyway!!

Then i remembered i signed up to review a shirt from tshirt printing.net. Rock on! i had totally forgotten about it.. plus i forgot where i signed up at!

OOPS!

* Martin when you read this can you please let me know if you remember 

Anyway.. wanna see the shirt?? Cuz of course as soon as i saw it had a monkey on it i ripped off my shirt and threw this one on! Its soo cute!!!

Do you see that Monkey?? How cute is he? And unlike alot of screen printed shirts The printing on these are awesome.. no pulling edges or cracking image when washed ( and yes i have washed it now)

So after wearing the shirt, sleeping in the shirt and washing the shirt.. I'm extremely happy with the quality!1 My monkey is still soft and smooth!  The only downside i found.. the website doesn't show much of their work or what they offer. It does she what they can print on or have to offer. They can do any logo you please.. but i wish it had more to look at! I did contact them to get a catalog because I will be ordering from them in the future!!!!

Go check them out.. tell me what you think.. Isn't my monkey sexy???

all rolled into one!!!

It's been crazy here lately.. Crazy is an understatement!! On the bullying incident We went in for a meeting Monday and spoke with the vice principal. The boy stayed home with me Monday and Tuesday until the issue was resolved. The decision to change his class room was made Monday night and i was informed yesterday he would be switching classes per my request. Thank you for all your supportive comments. I seem to have made some major waves over at the school but that's just to bad for them. Unfortunately i don't think this whole thing is quite over yet. The boys still have to interact at lunch and recess. well they don't have to but.. you know how kids are. But just to show it was a stabbing and not a poking as the mother claims  here is a pic of the wound 2 weeks + later

 Ridiculous!!

As for today.. well I'm one of THOSE moms running on little to no sleep. Its sent my mind reeling as my little princess cant do a damn thing she is asked nor follow any rules she knows by heart!

Why is it kids feel the need to find and look at any birthday presents that might possibly be hid in the house? My son found his the other day..I bought him the Michael Jackson experience for the Wii and the little shit found it. so we played it last night! OH MY GOSH I'm so sore today! I would be fine if that was all but then little miss princess decided to be nose and found her Dora game for the Wii. It killed me to have to fib to her and tell her it was for someone else!!!

 And whats up with men being dumb lately. Husband came by before he went home last night and ate dinner.. i made mannicotti and cheese tortellini  he  didn't eat the mannicotti.. his excuse.. too cheesy. he didn't like the stuff in the middle.. really? WTH? its the same as whats in lasagna..

Anyway  its only the middle of the week and its obvious its going to be a long week.. so ill leave you with what was supposed to be my wordless Wednesday post! oh and if any of you tell husband you saw this picture of him ill deny, deny, deny, DENY!!!!!!

Hope you all have a CRAZY rest of the day! remember i LOVE your comments.. so please leave me some more!!!

Lettin you get nosey with me!

I want to personally thank each and every one of you for your supportive comments about my sons bullying 
The feedback everyone left helped alot. For a little bit i wondered if i was over reacting.
An update on that note is the mother and i have been emailing back and forth and shes not very nice herself. She keeps trying to make my son out to be the bad guy and  informed me that i did nothing but embarrass and make the situation worse for my son by calling in the bullying counselor from central office. I am debating on posting the emails or at least excerpts from them.
 As for the Kiboomu Giveaway The winners will be contacted by Kiboomu!
 Now on to today's post! I'm sorry Ive been in and out just dealing with a ton of stuff over here

I saw this over at Bibs and Baubles and decided I’d try it too. Since I am fairly new to the blogosphere I thought this was a good way for you all to get to know me a wee bit. Enjoy and feel free to share as well!

The ABC’s Of Me:

{a} Age: 28
{b} Bed Size: Queen
{c} Chore You Hate: just one, huh? laundry.. i can leave laundry forever.....
{d} Dogs: love them!
{e} Essential Start To Your Day: a hug from my little ones.
{f} Favorite Color: pink.That's right in girly!
{g} Gold Or Silver:  silver
{h} Height: 5’5″
{i} Instruments You Play: none. I want to play the piano – does that count?
{j} Job Title: mommy,cook,referee,chaperon,taxi driver and many others
{k} Kids: Ive got three crazy wonderful kids. 2 boys and a girl
{l} Live: Tennessee
{m} Mom’s Name: Valerie
{n} Nicknames: mooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm
{o} Overnight Hospital Stays: for me? in the past 10 years 4  i think, with my sissy bug.. to many to count
{p} Pet Peeve: too many to name! mostly ignorance in any form
{q} Quote From A Movie: Roads? where we're going we don't need roads
{r} Right- Or Left-Handed: Right
{s} Siblings: 2 sisters and a brother all younger
{t} Time You Wake Up: 6 or 6:30 daily
{u} Underwear: colorful just like my socks!
{v} Vegetables You Dislike: none, I’m not nutty over mushrooms though
{w} What Makes You Run Late: ha.. too many to list
{x} X-Rays You’ve Had: teeth and knee
{y} Yummy Food You Make: according to my family everything is yummo!
{z} Zoo – Favorite Animal: Monkeys.. maybe because i have three that i gave birth to 

NOT Monday

So we all know that I am NOT the perfect person and mom right?? good..That's why I love NOT Mondays!! I can post all the  great dumb  things I  didn't do on Monday. Heck don't you know Mondays screw with everyone? NOT me!

so lets see I did NOT go to bed at 4 am this morning after forgetting I had inspection today ( first thing in the morning)

I  did NOT decide to redo my living room and spring clean the day before my yearly inspection( in which my home has to be spotless)

I did NOT oversleep.

Of course I did NOT forget to lay anything out for dinner this morning.

I did NOT forget the city is cutting off all water at 6 am Tuesday morning.

I did NOT forget to run to the store to get a gallon of water for my sons bottles so I don't have to go first thing tomorrow morning!

I did NOT give the baby the messiest feed yourself food on the day of said inspection ( which never happened by the way)

I definitely did NOT have half a bag of Tostitos 'Hint of Lime" chips and queso salsa for lunch.

I did NOT fall asleep with the baby  when i should have been cooking dinner.

I did NOT skip my workout today. Ya know especially since I definitely did NOT eat the fore mentioned chips. Oh and of course I did NOT post this late!!!!

So you see i had a great Monday for all the things I did NOT do!!!! What did you NOT do on your Monday??

Do NOT forget to go check out our giveaway with Kiboomu!

Feature Friday-Kiboomu (review and Giveaway)

For the past week I have had the pleasure of pouring over information and music and Ipod apps from an amazing couple of women!Funny thing is i already knew their site pretty well as i visit it all the time for my kids. I am so excited to be doing this feature and Giveaway!! Yes I said giveaway but i will get to that in a bit..

For those of you that don't know about this amazing Creation i would like to introduce you to 

These women i am going to tell you about have brought you ..

AMAZING apps

 music

song lyrics

 and learning tools for your children!

 I personally have used so many many of their creations for my own children.

I cant rave enough about their Apps. personally i hate my kids poking random things on my ipod. it just annoys me! But thanks to Kiboomu, my kids have their own apps to play with. along with their own music to listen to because well honestly Mommy's music isn't always kid friendly.

My son had trouble memorizing his multiplication facts.. the first place i went was  to Kiboomu's blog

Within a week his multiplication was so much better!

For my daughter i have used so many things from them. From their alphabet printables, to songs and letter and number activity's!Sissy and i love the Fitness songs. Seriously. I cant help but dance and work out to the music!They even have neat coloring pages for you to print out for when you have other things to do other than dance and sing with your kids.

I could go on for days about the amazing things they have to offer you and your child.

They even have too cool craft ideas!

Just look at these shamrocks on a stick you can create with your little ones...

Kiboomu helps me as a mom go beyond what they teach at school and the normal homemade crafts!Plus i get to have fun with my kids while they learn something new!I could seriously rant and rave about them all day.. but let me tell you a little about the two amazing women that created Kiboomu

Wendy and Sherry!

Wendy  is an award-winning entrepreneur and platinum award-winning singer/songwriter.Wendy received theTop 100 Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award and The Profit 100 Award as one of Canada’s top 100 companies.  She has been featured as a business cover story in multiple newspapers, amongst numerous other print publications and TV appearances.

Sherry is a former school teacher and  an award-winning children’s book publisher.  Her huge collection of book publishing's  have been translated into dozens of languages for world wide sales. Sherry also has over 10 years of marketing and sales experience working for Fortune 500 companies, such as Pearson Education and Reader’s Digest. 

Seriously can you get much cooler than that?

"Kiboomu was officially launched in January 2010.   Kiboomu is a Montreal-based development company that specializes in award-winning music and iPhone apps for kids.

Wendy and Sherry currently have 4 music apps available; Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Old MacDonald, ABC Song and Toddler Sing & Learn.

All 4 music iPhone apps for kids are consistently listed on “What’s Hot” and “New & Noteworthy” on iTunes. They were named in iLounge Top 100 Apps for 2010 and also won the Creative Child Toys Award 2010 and Parent Tested Parent Approved Award 2011.

Their creativity has been acknowledged on The Marilyn Denis Show,HuffingtonPost.com, TwitterMoms.com, Canada.com, Babble.com and in the Montreal Gazette, iPhone Life Magazine, Vancouver Sun,Montreal Families and Regina Leader-Post.

In addition, Wendy and Sherry are also the exclusive distributors for KIDZUP’s award-winning children’s digital music library.  KIDZUP boasts over 150 music albums on iTunes."

These women KNOW what they are doing and they ROCK at it!!!

Now if your anything like me you sat and tried to figure out how to say the name.. RIGHT?? Then you thought where in the world did they come up with that.. well ill tell you..

KI stands for Kids.  

+

BOO stands for Books

+

MU stands for Music

= Kiboomu

So i know you all are thinking "ok ok ok we get it they are awesome.. so where is the giveaway you mentioned.. well here it is.. Kiboomu is so generously giving away my favorite album and my favorite app! So two lucky winners will get to find out first hand just why i love them!Which album you ask? Which App.. well ill tell you....

The App give away is for 

ABC Song Piano

The Album Giveaway is for....

150 Preschool Songs

so here's how you can win one of these awesome giveaways from Kiboomu..

1. tell me which you giveaway you would pick if you won.

2. Go to their site and tell me which St. Patricks Day activity looks like something you would enjoy doing with your child.

3. Go follow them on facebook, and come back let me know

 4. leave all 3 things in a comment

Its that easy!!!!

All entrys must be in by 11 pm thursday March 17, 2011

Winners will be announced within 24 hours

Guest post by MamaBennie "Winter Can Suck It"

I am so tickled to have MamaBennie guest post for me today!! I had originally planned to review  Kiboomu for you today and post their awesome new app and giveaway, But alas.. that didn't happen as my ipod has gone missing!
MamaBennie is this ROCKIN ,cloth diapering, breast feeding, baby wearing, mama that I adore!! She has 2 super adorable  little girls!! Hop on over to her blog and check her out for your self!! I am forever grateful she took time out of her busy life to write for me!! so with out further adeau' .....

Winter Can Suck It

I loathe the existence of cold weather.  This is a fact everyone that has ever met me in any form knows.  Living in Pennsylvania my whole life, cold is a part of my existence.  I envy the people who get warmer temperatures in March, and my friend that lives in Hawaii who wears flip flops and shorts at Christmas.  I am sure you are wondering what brings that subject up. 

I brought this subject up because that little groundhog is a lieing bastard.  It is March, it is 21 degrees right now and it snowed and iced on us for the past two days here.  Where I live we get snow and in May sometimes, which is ridiculous.  If I could afford to move I totally would, because mother nature is a skanky bitch.  The weather here is also pretty schizophrenic.  A week of temperatures goes something like this: 19, 34, 50, 45, 60, 30, 10.  This crazy weather is the bane of my existence and I would like to kick mother nature square in the ass.  Packing up a 3 year old and 1 year old to go ANYWHERE when it is freezing, is ridiculous in it's own right.  

I know this post is kind of short, but chasing around said children from above is making my mind all wandery.  So, just thank your lucky stars if you live in a warmer climate, you could live where I live, and that would suck.  In face, winter can suck it.  

Where a kid can be a kid?

When you think of Chuck E. Cheese, you think pizza, fun , games, and happy kiddos right? 

Well i did until last Friday!

I decided to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's for a little fun! Boy i wish now i had gone to the one in Chattanooga and not the one in Knoxville.

I chose Knoxville because it's the one i went to growing up. I figured we couldn't go wrong with something that had never let me down before.

I even dated a guy that worked there when i was in high school.  Plus i had 2 coupon for a pizza drink and taken deal and one for free tokens. All the games now take one token i had 270 tokens. Hours of endless fun. It had to be a no fail plan! All was good until after the kids ate and decided to go play. Play is not what they did. More than half the games they tried just ate their tokens. Wouldn't do a damn thing when they put them in. So being the mom i am before a melt down ensued i walked to the front to talk to someone about them losing their tokens, i personally couldn't care less if they lost some of the massive amount of tokens i had. I explained the issue and  included how many token i bought , and let them know the loss of token was no big deal, the loss of game play was beginning to become one. What did they do? they handed me 20 tokens and said sorry for the issue.

Really 20 MORE tokens? Just give the kids some tickets for later. THEN the games stopped giving any tickets AT all. They would play and play and play and get NO tickets. or half the games were out of tickets so they couldn't play them. So out of 10 ride on games 5 worked. 15 arcade games that you win tickets from MAYBE 6 were working and actually giving them the tickets they earned. 

Then came the three words that should NEVER come out  of a kids mouth while at Chuck E. Cheese...

"Mom I'm BORED!!!"

After that i wrangled the kids up and headed back to the table to try once again to divert a melt down out of sissy .. only to find ALL our stuff was GONE except one of our drinks. Seriously.. they cleared everything away but left ONE drink? So they had to have known we were still there. Even our almost whole pizza was gone!After an hour of this BS i finally tracked down the manager who had a " and i care why?" attitude. At one point in the conversation he looked at me and said 'well you don't want more tokens so WHAT do you want?"

umm how about my money (and the last 3 hours of my life and the time it will take to calm down my three year old down after her melt down after we leave?)

So finally he says " ill just give you your money back and y'all finish using the tokens you have"

The man brought me back $25.00 of what i had spent. Really? 

Now don't get me wrong I'm grateful he gave me any of my money back, but I think after everything he should have given me back more than that.

So all in all we decided we will not be visiting Chuck E. Cheese again. At least not that location. We have a rinky dink version of Chuck E. Cheese here in town called Chuckles. I do believe we will be going there next time!

Between the rudeness of the staff and management, the lack of working properly games, the service, and the mess all over the floors i have to give this place a great BIG D, for DON'T BOTHER!!

Surprises coming!!!

Get ready dear readers this Crazy  Mama has some surprises coming your way!! Some awesome giveaways too!!! Theres stuff you are going to LOVE! How do i know?? Because i LOVE them too!!!

Stubborn Wednesdays

Wednesdays around here for some reason just never really work out for us.I guess its the middle of the week hump that we all get stuck on.Kids are late for school ( not usually but yesterday ). I want to be lazy and drag all day therefore never actually accomplishing anything other than the bare minimal chores.
Onto op all that i had a migraine. The darn thing decided it would come and go all day. On top of hat the baby is teething and picked yesterday to whine non stop and want to constantly be held. So on the sofa i sat in my jammies for most of the day.when i wasn't there i was laying one of the little ones down for a nap and dozing off with them. see no motivation yesterday. Normally i would have played on my phone until they drifted off to sleep so i could bustle around like a busy bee until they woke up. NO such luck yesterday. I think i finally got us all dressed around oneish. I t could have been later but i just didn't care yesterday.The neighbor came over and invited us to the park since it was so pretty yesterday, at first i was excited.. ohh yea first spring trip to the park... then my mind said "ohh no you don't Missy remember this migraine here: *THUMP*THUMP*THUMP!!!!

I decided i would be stubborn and take the kids to meet her at the park when the oldest got home from school.Of course she was already home by that time! So we planned a little welcome warm weather BBQ in the back yard. Meantime i released my kids into the backyard to play with her kids.
Now originally i had set out chicken for dinner ( late i might add) then we decided on the BBQ  and were gonna grill burgers then her guy said forget burgers lets do chicken so i put my burgers back in the freezer, and made plans to run to the store as soon as her friend came to pick up the little boy she was watching.
Well it got a little cool so i rounded up my crew and sent them inside while i made sides for the BBQ.
This my dear is when the meltdown happened! neither of the little ones wanted to come in. FULL BLOWN MELT DOWN.
Against my better judgement i laid the baby down for a quick afternoon/evening nap  knowing he hadn't had a decent nap all day.. and guess who fell asleep?? this girl right here! Yup.. i dozed off totally neglecting my dinner duties.  I woke up around 6 and text my friend and said i was just gonna cook something quick here and she said that worked. I ended up pulling my burgers back out of the freezer and cooking them!
I tell ya Wednesday's are just NOT my days! i think I'm going to ban them.. maybe renaming them would help.. middleday or outcast day.. how about nomatterwhatyoudoitsgoingtobescrewed day!

Tuesdays drag by it seems! I dont know why. Do you?
Between laundry, dishes, breakfast,lunch, snack,s diapers, dusting, and all the other regular chores, it feels like forever before bath and bed time! For some reason nap time is never long enough to accomplish anything on tuesdays.
I finally convinced little miss to turn the tv off and listen to the radio. Actually it was the babys doing that caused this. You see we have netflix so it runs through our playstation. So it was a nice break from pink panther when J accidently turned the PS3 off.
Netflix is a poor mommas life saver! I HATE cable for the most part. granted having the ability to watch stuff like the oscars and such is a plus BUT i made the sacrifice considering my cable bill alone was running $160.00 a month! Netflix runs me $10.00 for unlimited movies and tv shows WITHOUT having to have DVR. i cant beat $120.00 a YEAR vs $160.00 a MONTH!

Somehow i missed up the nerve in my back again. so once again simple things like bending over, walking and standing up cause me horrid pain! 2 Tylenol told that nerve who was boss for a bit but not for long.
So this charlie Sheen thing. i turned on the radio and thats the first thing i heard.. what exactly is going on? Another drug problem? Another woman? I know i heard he wants a raise.. really Charlie you need a raise? Does the 1.5 millon or so you get for each estimate not cover your expenses? I doubt ill ever see 1.5 million throught out my lifetime. he makes that per episode!! maybe he should do a few less drugs and the 1.5 mil would be enough!

well its time for the big guy to be home from school.. off to fix a snack for him!

The Great Public Potty Debate

2 weeks ago I took my  three children, a friend and her two children  on a road trip. About 2 hours away ( what was i thinking?)to the Murfreesboro Discovery Center. Now this place was COOL to the max! the kids loved it!! the 2 1/2 story slide, the electronic bugs amazing but more on that awesome place in another post ( maybe tomorrow) When we finally hauled all five kids  out of the truck and strapped two into strollers paid our way in ( only 30$ for us all), being the smart moms we are took our kids potty. My oldest (9) took her oldest (4) into the men's room with strict instructions to keep an eye on him.

While changing diapers i noticed the door opened and a shy little girl walked in. she couldn't have been over 3. her dad was outside the door telling her to ask someone for help if she needed it. this is where my mind starts to spin..
At what point did the battle of the sexes or whatever you want to call it draw such a bold line in the sand or in this case the bathroom floor? Why is it ok for a mom to take her little boy in the women's restroom when the father isn't with her but its not ok to take a little girl in the men's room when she is out for a day with daddy or by chance he is a single father of a little girl? Why is it so Horrible that a man might enter the women's restroom to take his little girl potty? I fully understand then not taking a little girl in the men's room. I have a 3 year old myself and wouldn't want her to go in the men's restroom when she is out with her father. there are obvious reasons  on the no little girls in the men's room one is the amount of exposure. me use urinals, the wrong angle and my little girl could see some unsightly things and scar her for life.
My question is.. WHY is it so horrible for a father to go into the women's restroom with his daughter? There are stalls in the women's restrooms. Stalls with doors and locks and walls. No one sees each other  when they use the restroom. So why cant a father accompany his little girl to help her? What happens when a 3 year old goes in the women's restroom alone, goes in the stall closes the door and LOCKS it behind her? does she know to wipe off the potty? No! Does she know to check for toilet paper? No! can her little arms reach  to wipe her bottom when she poops? Not usually? Are most little girls too shy to ask for a strange woman help? Yes! So there the little girl sits on a dirty potty, with or with out toilet paper to scared to ask for help. this wouldn't happen if Daddy was there.
Its a constant battle between myself and daddy, when he wants to take our little girl somewhere for some time with her, because i know he wont go into the womens restroom with her and will send her in alone. I don't want my little girl to be the 3 year old alone in the bathroom sitting on a dirty potty with or with out toilet paper. By chance if she poops  she wont be able to wipe herself and  i sure as heck don't want some strange woman wiping my daughter bottom. Which couldn't even happen if she locked the stall door. Heaven forbid  she tries to wipe and smears poop all up her back  or  just doesn't wipe because she doesn't know what to do and comes home with a chapped bottom or a urinary tract infection. So in lack of family bathrooms in many places i deny my daughter daddy daughter days. i blame it on society's prudish views.
So i ask whats the big deal about men  taking their little girl in a public women's bathroom?