Brittanie has color guard duty tonight and had to wear her Class B uniform. I had to get a picture of it. She is so decorated that it was pulling her uniform sideways. This is not the best picture of her because she refused to smile and it is blurry. But I caught another picture of her from the side that shows her awards clearly. I am so proud of her.
Brittanie absolutely LOVES her youth group. They have dinner together on Wednesday nights before church and their youth leader, Mr. Mike, is wonderful. He is actually the one who invited her to visit Faith almost a year ago. She has loved it ever since. This weekend, they are going white water rafting in Tennessee. That's scary for me knowing that she is going to be a couple of states away but I can (and will deal with that). But last night, she came home all happy and smiley, like she always does after church, and announced that her youth group is going to Romania next summer for church camp and wants to go. My first instinct? An emphatic NO! I told her there are plenty of church camps in the US and she said she is NOT wearing "little house on the prairie clothes." I told her that she doesn't have to go to an independent Baptist camp. She can go to a Southern Baptist camp where they don't dress like that. I went to Acadiana Baptist Center in Eunice, LA every summer and LOVED it!! There is also Camp Pearl in Kinder, LA. I hated it the one summer I went but I had no friends there. I didn't go with a group. My nephew went and loved it but he makes friends easily. So the problem with Camp Pearl was probably me. But she immediately got mad and started to go upstairs, which is what she does instead of mouthing off and arguing like a normal teenager. I don't know which I prefer. That going up and hiding reminds me of my brother. Whenever there is conflict he has always clammed up and retreated. I hate that! But Tom got home while we were talking about it and he is more logical and open minded than I am. He asked why Romania. Our church has some fascination with that place...they go every summer. He is actually thinking about it. He is the head of the house and the spiritual leader in our home so he gets the final word. I am going to be praying that he says NO! I tried deterring her by telling her she will probably need shots to go there. She said "So?" After her nasty case of tonsillitis earlier in the year when she had a shot every day for 6 days, she is no longer afraid of needles. So that didn't work. I told her that the only country she is allowed to go to besides the US is Canada. But she told me when she joins the Army she is going to be going everywhere.
I'm horrible with geography. I don't even know where Romania is. I have heard of it but all I keep thinking is about that movie "Hotel Rowanda." I know that is in Africa but still! I know I'm being irrational but the thought of my baby going wayyyyyyyyyyyy over there scares me ALOT. I hated for Tom to go to Ireland....and I KNOW where that is!
On a positive note, she has had a great week at school. She actually came home happy, smiling, and bubbly yesterday. She is enjoying her classes and happy to be able to eat in the Jr/Sr. Dining Hall for the first time! That was the forbidden room for two years and now it is no longer forbidden. It made her feel like a junior!! lol Little things mean alot.
That's our update for today. Yall have a good weekend!
After almost a year of being up to 14 days behind on my typing, I'm completely caught up!! I had Denise praying for me all weekend that I would get it done. I spent all weekend and all night Sunday night typing, took a nap Monday morning, then back at it and finished it all up at 11pm last night! Of course I got another dictation this morning but at least I'm back to doing them the same day I receive them. I've got Denise praying with me that I never get backed up ever again. That was horrendous for me and my doctor. I'm blessed with a boss that is soooooooo understanding. He is an outstanding doctor and a wonderful boss.
But anyway, I better get to work. I don't want to get behind again! Yall have a good week!
Ok, I'm really embarrassed now. We normally don't go to church on Wednesday nights. Well tonight, Brittanie took Katie with her to church and the kids and teachers in her class were asking Katie what her name was and she told them "Steven." She never would tell them what her real name was. Tom tried to explain to her that Steven is a boy's name and she is a girl. She said "No, I'm a boy." Tom said (in typical Tom sarcastic tone) "uh, no you are not a boy!" She said "uh, yes, I AM a boy!"
That's really starting to freak Brittanie out and she is afraid Katie is going to be gay. I told her that I did the same thing growing up. From the time I was little, I hated being a girl because boys got better toys (I hated dolls and all that girly junk.) and they were able to do alot of stuff girls couldn't. Now I didn't change my name the way she has, but she is more creative than I am. I would love to know where she came up with the name "Steven" because we don't know anyone with that name.
But now I'm dreading going to church and having them tell me Katie refused to tell them her name. I'm telling ya....the girl ain't right! hehehe
Last week we were watching something Maury (I like those stupid paternity shows...dunno why though) and Maury said "You are NOT the father." Katie, without missing a beat, said "Oh snap!" We don't say that. She must have heard it somewhere on TV but it was too funny hearing it come out of her mouth.
Tonight, we went to Ryan's (we haven't been there in over a year) and our waiter was real effeminate. At one point, she watched him walk away from our table, then looked at us and said "Is this gay day?" That kid is 3 going on 30.
We have been praying with her that she would behave and it has really helped. Well tonight, she requested that when Tom says the blessing, he ask God help her to be good tonight. I guess she was REALLY tempted. Well as we know, prayer works and she was really good tonight. I am so proud of her.
She is just a ball of personality. The older she gets the less she looks like my baby pictures and the more she looks like my mother-in-law's sister, Jeannie. I haven't seen Jeannie in awhile but everytime I did see her, she was beautiful.....dark hair and big bright eyes....like Katie. Brittanie looks like Tom's cousin, Carla....who is beautiful. So it is possible that Katie will end up looking like Aunt Jeannie. That would be great!!
There are things in 2006 that Tom and I and even Brittanie didn't have growing up. But Katie is so accustomed to them that it is like they always existed. She has really been making us laugh lately.
For example, we have (and LOVE) TiVo. I don't know how we lived without it. We rarely watch things in real time. We usually record what we want to see and then we wait until it is at least half way over before we start watching it so we can fast forward through the commercials. Well if we are watching just any old thing because there is really nothing interesting on, she just doesn't understand why we are watching commercials.
Another example is today when Tom took her to Food Lion, they passed by Hershey's Kisses and she told her daddy she wanted those and he said "What?" She told him to "scroll back" so she could show him what she wanted. He laughed and told her that this was the grocery store, not the internet. He can't scroll back in the store. hehehe
She loves electronics like the rest of us in this house. She gets mad if I do something as simple as hit the button on the phone to turn it on when it is for her. She wants to learn how to use everything electronic. Here is the reaction I got when I hit the button to turn on the phone when my mom called her today.....
She was not at all happy. She told my mom I was being mean to her by not letting her push the button. (Hey Denise....It's MY turn, I push the button!!! hehehe)
Brittanie's boyfriend, Randy, taught her to balance a spoon on her nose and now I can't keep a clean spoon in the house! LOL
Last night I was getting ready to serve dinner and I told Katie "C'mon Katie B let's go "dip our plates" as Grandma and Grandpa would say." In my family, we "served" our plates but Tom's parents always said "dip your plate." Well I "dipped her plate" and handed it to her and she said "I didn't get any dip!" hahaha I tried explaining it to her that there wasn't any dip, it is just a way to say putting food on a plate but she was still not happy about not having any dip.
Learn from our experience. AirMaster in Gaston put our unit in 7 1/2 years ago. We have had them out at least 4 times in that time to fix problems with the unit. In the last 2 months, they have come out twice. The first time, one day we smelled something burning, like the heater being turned on for the first time after months of being off and it was no longer cooling. They cleaned out the drain and put freon on it and charged us $125! It was hot again the very next day. I called them but they never came back. The second time, they told us it needed a new thermostat. Tom got home from Ireland and said that is stupid and there is nothing wrong with the thermostat. It was working intermittently. Well now that it is hot, the times it works is few and far between and yesterday it didn't recover. It was soooooooo hot!! I really got HOT when our power bill came in and it was $370!!! We are hot all month and our power bill is $150 more than the previous month!
Well Tom called 2nd Wind Heating and Air to come out and take a look at it. They were to come here at 8am. They were here at 7:50am ready to work. As it turns out, the heater and the AC were running at the same time and the fan relay (which Air Master allegedly replaced last year) was not working and that's why the fan was running constantly. So to replace the components in the heater so that it doesn't run at the same time that the AC is running and to replace the fan relay, plus diagnostic charge, he quoted me $526. That's expensive but it is only $31 more than my electric bill and Air Master's bill and my AC still wasn't fixed! This way I get a cool house and an AC and heater that works. It is worth it. Well after he got in there he realized that only one of the components was bad on the heater so the bill was only $374!! Oh! by the way, he ended up having to let some of the freon out because it was overcharged! So Air Master charged me for putting freon in a unit that didn't need it. Fortunately, the 2nd Wind guy didn't charge me for letting out the extra.
So my suggestion to those who are in need of a heating and air company in the Midlands of South Carolina.....call 2nd Wind at 803-786-7433 for the Columbia area and 803-424-5207 for the Camden area. http://www.2ndwindhvac.com/
I've always said Katie was a drama queen. Well today, she proved it....kiddie style. I was looking straight ahead typing but watching them in my peripheral vision. She and Brittanie were to my right. Brittanie pushed her (not hard) to move her out of the way and she started to fake cry and Brittanie told her that she did NOT push her hard and she knows that didn't hurt. Katie said "yes it did." She then licked her finger and put the spit from her finger under her eyes to make it look like she was crying and said "See the tears!"
She has such a wild imagination!!! I dread her teenage years!!
I didn't want to start a new post since this was all in the same day so I thought I would add it to this one. Tonight, when Tom got home, Katie started calling him "Tommy." We can't figure out why. We don't call him that. Tom's parents call him Tom. Now his extended family all call him Tommy but she hasn't been around them. So we can't figure out why she is out of the blue starting to call him Tommy. It was cute at first but then Tom had to get serious and tell her she isn't allowed to call us by our names. She has to call us Mom and Daddy. But everybody that knows Katie knows it just won't be that easy. She never obeys right away. But anyway, I thought it was pretty funny and wanted to share that little Katieism.
Here we go again! Yesterday, I was scheduled to have lunch with Samantha so I sent Brittanie to get the food while I took a shower. I warned Katie (and threatened) three times NOT NOT NOT to go near Brittanie's room and definitely do NOT touch that hamster. Well I was only in the shower 10 minutes. I came out and called to Katie to see where she was. She came out of the playroom. So I thought she FINALLY obeyed. Well Brittanie got home with the food and I got ready to leave and Katie closed the playroom door. She NEVER does that. So the red flag went up. I asked her if she had the hamster in there and she said no and kept insisting she didn't touch the hamster. I told Brittanie to go upstairs and check on her hamster. As soon as I told Brittanie that, Katie started crying telling me she didn't touch the hamster. She is such a good actress for a minute, I almost believed that she was being wrongly accused. But Brittanie came down, guns blazing, ready to kill her. So I knew she really did take the hamster....AGAIN!!!! She still kept insisting she didn't touch it, until I told Brittanie to get the paddle and I would MAKE her tell me. That's when she said it was in the playroom. Brittanie asked her where in the playroom and she said, "the toybox." Sure enough, there he was....under a bunch of toys and probably scared to death. That poor hamster has had a rough life since he became part of our family.
Well I took Katie in the living room and explained to her that she was getting a s p a n k i n g (I am spacing it out because perverts do a search for that word and I don't want them looking at my blog) for disobeying me when I told her at least three times NOT to touch that hamster or go near Brittanie's room and also for lying. So I gave her the mommy justice and confined her to her room till I got home. The only time she could get out was to use the bathroom and Brittanie was to pop her with the paddle one time for everytime she got out of the room without permission and everytime she lied about having to go to the potty. Because that is the other thing she does when she is put in time out....she develops a sudden bladder urgency....that really doesn't exist.
So I was able to have my lunch with Samantha, Sandra, and Hunter in peace. We had a great time and it was wonderful to get away from the chaos that is Katie and just enjoy myself. It is a shame though because Katie LOVES Samantha, Mammie (Sandra), and Paw Paw (Jimmy) and they love her too. But she will NOT be rewarded for bad behavior. She is so stubborn and defiant. She KNOWS the consequences of her actions but she is willing to take her consequences in order to do what she wants. That really scares me. At this rate, she will be in DJJ by the time she is 5.
Pray for us!!
Last night we went to Frank and Lynn's house and had a great time! The teenagers went to see Pirates of the Carribean 2 and we stayed home and played Pictionary. We had subs, chips and dip and Mississippi Mud Pie. We had such a great time. They are so fun to be with. Tom and Frank used to work together and have been friends ever since. Lynn and I have the same name. She prefers to be called Lynn and I prefer to be called Nette. We played a couple of games of Pictionary couples against couples and Tom and I won. Then we changed up....men versus women. That's when things REALLY got fun!! Lynn and I beat them sooooooooooo bad!!! Ok not really. We won by one square! It was GREAT!! Tom HATES to lose and beats me at everything. It was such a sweet victory. hehehe
We are going to ty to get together like that every month. We just have so much fun with them!
I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day and remember to keep our soldiers in your prayers!
Now I have to tell you about yesterday! Brittanie went to work out at the Leisure Center and I had been up since 4am typing. So I put Katie in bed for her nap and then I went bed. I told Katie she better NOT get up. But I should have known better. She NEVER listens to anything I say. By the time Brittanie got home and I got up from my nap, Katie had gotten into sooooooo many things she shouldn't have, but we didn't realize it at first. When I got up, I fussed at her for not taking a nap and I put her to bed and she finally went to sleep. That's when Brittanie got home. She went upstairs to take a shower and came back downstairs screaming that her hamster was gone. She started looking everywhere for the hamster. He was nowhere to be found. We searched the house over. When Katie woke up, we BEGGED her to tell us what she had done with the hamster. She kept denying she even touched the hamster. We knew it was a lie from the condition of the cage. Well Tom got home and after a little "daddy discipline" she took him right to the hamster. She had gone upstairs to Brittanie's room and gotten the hamster out of the cage. She couldn't catch the hamster in the cage so she pushed the cage back so that the back part is hanging over the stairwell, then pulled the tray with the shavings out so the hamster fell out of the back of the cage and had about an 8 foot fall onto the stairs below. Then she went down and picked him up, took him to our bookcase, moved my fish, pulled the printer and shoved the hamster down the hole that is there for the printer and computer cords. That made the hamster fall behind the drawers in the bookcase. Our main worry was that he could have eaten rat poison because we didn't remember if we actually put poison in the bookcase or not since the rat scare last year. We knew there was rat poison under the house and all in the walls but couldn't remember if there was any in the house. But so far, the hamster is fine so there must not have been any poison in there. I just don't know what to do with that child anymore. It is like impossible for her to behave without us grabbing the paddle first!
Brittanie was still mad at Katie about the whole hamster incident and didn't want her anywhere near her last night. So Tom stayed home with her. He didn't mind because he had bought himself a wireless something or other toy and wanted to stay home to play with it. (For the guys at Zeus that read this....I put sticky notes that said "I love Tom" all over the top of the box and put the box high on a shelf so he didn't see it right away. He laughed when he took the box down. hehehe) So I took Brittanie and Randy to Fort Jackson for the Torchlight Tattoo. I didn't read the directions very well. They have made the gate we normally go to just for DOD personnel. I didn't want to drive Jonathan's car, which has that tag, so I took my van and just picked another gate.....Percival Road. Well I have a horrible sense of direction and took the wrong exit on Percival Road and ended up going around the base....the LONG way and had to call Tom, who got me to the Leesburg gate. The traffic was horrendous but Brittanie and Randy didn't mind because they were watching a movie while we were in traffic. I didn't go up there for the ceremony. I just wanted to see the fireworks. But I had such an awesome parking spot, I could hear everything. It was great. But I still watched a movie till the fireworks started. Brittanie and Randy had a great time. The fireworks were outstanding. Fort Jackson never disappoints.
Here is a picture of Randy and Brittanie taken at Fort Jackson last night.
Today, Brittanie is going to Randy's. Tom and Katie are going to Spartanburg to his parent's house. And I'm staying home typing. I love the peace and quiet. I work better that way.
Tom went to the store today and bought Katie some Necco wafers. I hate those things. I can't stand the smell or the taste of them so I call them "Yucko wafers." We wouldn't let her eat the wafers until she had eaten supper. Well as soon as she finished eating, she asked me if she could have her "yucko wafers." Tom told her "They are "NECCO wafers. Mom doesn't like them so she just calls them yucko wafers." Well once something is in her head....it is there forever. So now forever more she will call them "Yucko wafers." After she and Tom ate them, I had to make her brush her teeth. The smell of them on her breath made me nauseous.
For all of the youngsters out there that don't know what Neccos are, here is a picture.
After I took these pictures and looked at them on the camera, that's when I realized she had a chunk of hair sticking up. It is remnants from her cutting her own hair at Christmas time. It still hasn't grown out all the way because she basically cut it to the scalp. So then I redid her hair, which she wasn't happy about and took this one:
Is she a ham or what? Tom is taking her to school but that means he has to get up earlier than he had been. 
He hasn't had to take anyone to school since the end of May. So this getting up almost an hour earlier was rough. Take a look for yourself.....
I laughed at Tom while he was rubbing his eyes and trying to wake up so he and Katie made the mean face at me.
She was so excited to go to school today that she got up at 6am!! I was up typing so she got in bed with Tom. I got her up at 6:45 and gave her breakfast and got her dressed and she just couldn't stop smiling. I hope she keeps this enthusiasm for school!
