Adventures

I have spent the last few hours reading over some of the adventures of my life. I am so thankful I recorded so many of my adventures, because it is so easy to get all caught up in life and never think to write any of it down. Pictures just don't do memories justice. Not that I take any, because I can rarely find my camera, and I like to let other people just email them to me anyway. Actually writing down how I felt or what was really going on are the best gifts I can give.
Lets be honest here, one day I''ll be old and lonely and I will look back at my pictures of Disney World 2010 to see us all smiling and happy looking. Ill think, "oh wasn't that trip just the best thing that ever happened to us?! Look how happy we were!" And we were, but I wont remember how it took us an hour to get to the park because I was cheap and didn't stay on the monorail. Or that Don and I had just finished up a fight over who was actually responsible for loosing Annaliese's charm bracelet. A charm bracelet that took her all of 4 minutes to make, but somehow it was her most important belonging and if she didn't cry and wallow around in her own misery for at least an hour we might not know that.
Now I am on another adventure. One that includes a small business, lice, and me. I will make sure to write more about it because one day when I'm all rich from it, I will want to read about how I did it. Well me and Oprah will anyway.

BTW the website is www.liceology.com
We serve Oklahoma and Dallas Fort Worth

Lorelai Mae

Lorelai (pronounced Lore ah lie)
Mae (After my grandmother and Dons great grandmother)
6lbs 5oz
181/4 in.

Well, well, well...

So it may have been a month or four or five since I last visited this blog. I have a good reason. You know, I was doing stuff, like, you know, stuff. OK, it is called laziness and I admit that. In fact I embrace it. It is mine to own.

As many of you know, we are expecting Steel baby #3 in July. I am 23 weeks today, for those of you non math people, that is almost 6 months. It has been such an adventure doing this for the third time. Let me take you back a little to the other times I have gained significant amounts of weight in a short amount of time. Or been pregnant.

I remember when I was pregnant with the girl. I moaned and complained and rolled around thinking no one ever... on this earth...ever... has been as miserable as me. It was hot and I was fat, and I had all the time in the world to lay around after work, in my bra and undies, and eat. Oh, and I worried that she might not be developing right, or if I felt her move 20 times in one hour. I have a hard time believing that Don actually loved me back then. After she was born, well after about 4 months when I actually started to like her, I doted on her every move and need. She knew every color, shape, letter, object, you name it she knew it. I worried if she scraped her knee or bumped her head, if I played with her enough or too much, and how much some of my actions would cost her in therapy. I pushed her to be smarter and stronger.

Then I got pregnant with the boy. I realized that I was in fact not the only person to have ever been pregnant, and that most likely, this not being a third world country and all, that I would survive pregnancy. I was no longer able to lay around and moan and complain, because, that girl that I had given birth to earlier, could give a shit. She had things she needed to do, and my big belly and whatever was inside of it could just get over it. This left very little time for self indulgence and remembering to count how many times he kicked me in an hour or if I ate too much lunch meat or hot dogs, or whatever it is you cant eat. When he was born, he got shuffled around, everyone was allowed to hold him and cough on him, and rarely do I remember to tell him about his colors and shapes. He is over indulged with sweets and carried around because I actually enjoy his babyness instead of worrying so much about it. He is the baby of the family and I could have 15 more children and you will have a hard time convincing him otherwise.

This time, I forget I am pregnant, until I get kicked for sitting hunched over, or every time I pee on myself because the weather can't decide what to do and consequently I sneeze all the time. I lay in bed at night not wallowing in my misery, but actually sleeping, preparing for the 7:30 hour when two other children expect to be fed, and need to catch what Handy Manny and his talking tools are up to. Those crazy talking tools, you cant let 'em out of your sight for a minute.

This baby is going to get swept up into the shuffle of the crazy Steel's. We will love it and coo over it, and it has two siblings waiting to fight over who gets to feed it and sleep with it. We really are looking forward to July, when our last, and much awaited member, joins the ranks.

My kids are a little crazy, now there is proof.

This is for Sandy. She said that she needs some laughter during the day. Notice how he stops every now and then to let me know his head might fall off the bed. A little bipolar, but there are good medicines for that now a days.

This next video is just an example of the sibling harmony in my home. They love each other so much, and it just shows in this video. My only wish is that they always get along this well.

Some Pictures!

Harry and Hermione

Jack was actually running away, he hates touching pumpkin insides.

Ghouls Gone Wild Parade

Annaliese's 6th Birthday Party. Ponies, compliments of Grandma and Papa.

Just thought this was funny.

First day of Kdg. and Mothers Day Out.

Go Check This Out

www.armyofwomen.org
I saw this on Good Morning America today, and hope they can reach their goal of 1 million women.

Good Bye To Summer

Not to me, but the actual season.
This summer is coming to a close and it is high time I give it a little recap. I keep this blog as a sort of journal, and unlike some things I might like to forget, the summer of 2008 is not one of them.
We had a very busy summer. It started off with a trip to Branson, of course you all are aware of that, because you have had to look at the same post for two months. After that I was a volunteer camp counselor at Camp DaKani for a week. The kids absolutely loved this and are all fired up about next year. I did this with Camille, and I think we did a pretty good job. No child in our care had any life threatening injuries and I only complained about the heat three or four...OK, 15 times. Annaliese went to Camp Chaverim day camp for three weeks with her friend Charlie. She did pretty well with it, although she didn't want me getting all crazy and sign her up for next year just yet.
We had a few court things with Nathan, but still he has not made any decisions about what to do. Not that he has all the say, but he can make a few decisions for himself.
My mom, Don and I, and the kids went to Colorado to see my family. I met up with my father there. Yep, the same father I haven't spoken to in two years. It went as expected. We acted like nothing really happened. I was able to talk to him a little, but his attention span is shorter than Jacks, and he truly believes nothing is his fault. I am old enough now to know that I have to keep on going, let him have his faults, and quit blaming myself for our relationship short comings. I got to see my other half-brother Rudy on this trip. It was nice. He is a really good kid who is trying to find out who he is, and what he wants from life. I hope everything works out for him. Everyone got along well, and I am actually looking forward to some future get togethers.
To end the summer Don and I and the kids went to TX to celebrate Sandy's sister's 60th birthday. It was a surprise party, but I highly doubt she was actually surprised. It was a great time though, and I had fun being with Don's parents and brother. While we were there we visited Ikea. Huh, didn't know a place like that existed here on earth. Read these words... I will be back.
Annaliese is starting Kindergarten tomorrow. I am tha-rilled about this because she is bouncing off the walls after three months of unstructured leisure. And I know it is time for someone else to entertain her, because I am actually starting to feel guilty for not wanting to play train ride, camping, or any other make believe game that requires her to pack a bag and walk around the house. Because if I have to empty one more bag full of one more item from every tub, basket, puzzle, game, bath toy, doll, and make up container, I don't know what could happen. Anyway, I digress. Annaliese did learn to swim without floaties this summer. She has such a sense of freedom now in the pool. She jumps off the diving board and thinks she is hot shit. She's all wild, and tan, and free. Now, on to the boy.
JH learned over the summer that he has the power within himself to be a complete butt hole. You see kids, he was unaware of this for about 3 years. And then one day he woke up, and realized that, in fact, he did not have to clean up when asked, or eat all of his green beans, or that it was perfectly OK to try and strangle his sister. He also learned that he loves soccer and is all excited about playing on a team. A team I might add, that will be coached by his father and mother. Yep, watch out soccer world, 'cause here we come.
Lastly, I purchased a new refrigerator and got suckered into putting my house on the Mesta Park Holiday Home Tour. Whew. My fingers are tired.
I will post some pictures and soon as I find the little thingy that my card goes into.

Bransonland

I didn't really spend any time at all in the kitchen, but the picture looks like I was working hard.

That's Jack riding with me. It's hard to see him because for some reason, I thought I needed to strike a street walker pose, and obscure his face with my bosom.
Take note of the sassy PaPa and Grandma shirts they are sporting. Hot.
(Just kidding you two, I am so thankful to have people in our life willing to wear such a thing. But let's limit their wearing to Silver Dollar City.)

They like goats in Musura. They actually head butted each other after this picture. Jack won, 'cause he's a bad ass.

The next two pictures show what happens when you take my city slicker children out in the country. They fall. A lot.

Summer Pics

EVP

I would like to start off and tell everyone that I am in fact a believer in the spiritual side of life. And death. I think that something happens after a person dies, because I can't think that you just die, and spend the rest of eternity in a ugly, overpriced coffin. But I do know that your body will just lay around forever, so, I have already instructed my mom to have me buried in a size 4 dress and have the tag 'accidentally' sticking out. You never know when someone might dig you up and be impressed. Hopefully they don't turn me over and see the back is about 4 inches from closing. Anyway, I choose to never discuss what my beliefs are, or to ask anyone else what theirs are. Because , lets be honest, have you ever had a conversation about religion that ends with, "you know what, you have a good point, I never thought of that before." I didn't think so.
So last night my mom and I went to visit an EVP expert. Basically meaning, she records the voices of spirits. She used to be part of a paranormal investigation team, and found to have a gift for getting 'the dead' to communicate with her. We went into this last night with an open mind, all excited to have this experience, no matter what the outcome. Well, to be honest I really wanted my grandmother to come though all sassy and tellin' us how good she has it now. Hopefully, leaving out any mention of Nathan's where abouts. You know, why fluster the dead.
Lisa, the EVP expert, is everything you would expect her to be. She works in a crowded vintage shop, burns incense, has looooong hair, and talks about talking to the dead like it's nothing. She does all of the recordings at the old house next door to Panoply. She told us that she gets better readings in there. We went over there twice and did two different recordings. She holds this little tape recorder and walks around the house, asking for Shirley Mangan to come and speak with her. She told the others to be quiet, because she didn't want to hear from them. Apparently,there are a few spirits that like to hang around the house and cause trouble. When we were done recording and Lisa had left, I told those spirits they could do whatever they want, because I have no intention of pissing off anything dead. I don't care what the long haired lady said.
After she recorded what seemed like nothing, with my mom and I following her around like a couple of idiots, we went back to her store office. She hooked up the recorder to her computer and ran it though a program. The program gets out background noise and amplifies the sound. It looks like the stuff you can see on CSI, with sound waves and stuff. And then she started to listen.
It all sounds like a bunch of static until she re-runs it a couple of times, or slows it down, and then believe it or not you can hear voices. One particular voice kept coming through, but she told us that was Mr. Banta, the trouble maker. When she asked on the recording for Shirley to come though and tell us something personal, you could actually hear him say "Oh, shut up". Lisa thought this was humorous and kept on going. There are 'people' she calls monitors, and they help the person you are contacting come though and talk, or sometimes they just relay messages for them. They have different sounding voices, kinda robotic. It took for effing ever to get through about 10 minutes of actual recordings, but it was fascinating.
We heard the male robotic voice tell us, "She has gone to the light", "We will get her", "We will help her". We made no contact with her on the first recording, but after we went back we had more luck and started hearing some things. We heard a female voice, say something like, "help me in the bathroom", um OK. Sorry grams, shitting in the afterlife is on you. Many times Lisa told us that Shirley seemed stubborn. My grandmother was stubborn. We heard a monitor say, "You look through here" and then a cranky female voice said,"I can't see through that thing". Lisa was all excited about that comment, because she is always trying to figure out what 'they' do to communicate with us. I got all excited because that bitch on the other side was starting to sound an awful lot like my grandmother. A male voice randomly said, " The enemy is coming. Hide" and yet another say, "You are a snake like me, Calvin?" It was difficult to hear the last part of that. A little weird.
Throughout the second recording the oddest thing happened. Again Lisa was all aflutter, because it was something she had never seen before on a recording. Throughout most of the entire recording there was a beat. You could see it and hear it. It was a constant a steady beat.
----ll----ll----ll----ll. It looked like that on the computer. And trust me there was no sound like that in the house, or outside. It was not something you could hear with your ear, only with the recorder, and it was constant no matter where she was in the house. Freaked myself out a little with that one.

Towards the end of the recording, we heard a female say, "lets talk about..." Lisa thought it was a name, she said, "something like Jason, no ason, something like that." Could it be Nathan, who knows. We heard a ship and water. My grandmother was from Massachusetts and her ashes are scattered near Cape Cod. How she loved the ocean.

I don't know if we made contact with her, but I do believe we made contact with something. And it was amazing.

The Other Side

Tomorrow night my mom and I are going on an outing. We will be visiting a woman, http://criscontactresearch.com, that hears/speaks to dead people. They communicate with her over frequency. You know, white noise. My mom is hoping to make contact with her mother. I don't know why, she'll probably just bitch at my mom, and tell her the food on the other side is making her fat. But whatever, I think it's fun, and maybe we might make contact. I will post later.
Actually, I think we can buy a CD of the recordings, maybe I could post it on here! Just for your listening pleasure.

A Birthday Poem

Once upon a time there was a boy.
Who was always a little shy and coy.

He loved his momma and his dad
and was hardly ever bad.

But as he got closer to turning three
he got wild and brought his parents to their knees.

With his smile he still gets what he thinks he needs
and everyday all his ladies do heed.

He is cautious but free, and bossy yet sweet.
So we know that this baby boy we must keep.
To watch him grow to the man he will be.

Happy Birthday
Mommy

Thermosat Issues.

The thermostat and I had a long heart to heart today. It took longer that I thought it would to convince it that is was not in fact, bipolar. It was crying and carrying on because it didn't understand why it went from heat to cool EVERYDAY.
After too much whining I finally told it, "It's Oklahoma bitch, get over it!"

The Place We're At

I haven't written much about Nathan or my family on here lately, so I thought I might give an update.

As I write, he is still in the county jail, and he has no hope of returning home at this time. He will go from there to prison, and that is the hard reality he is facing. Oddly enough, we are all dealing with this pretty well. Don't get me wrong, every time I look at his Kitchen Aid mixer on my counter, I get a certain feeling of sadness. But day to day life is easier than I thought it would be.

Currently, the offer from the DA is 20 years, to include 5 years from his juvenile history. This is an 85% crime, meaning he would have to complete around 17 years of his sentence. No early release for good behavior. We are all hoping that this offer will come down, but at this point there is no telling. Nathan has a public defender, and...well...hmm...we get very limited amounts of her time. His juvenile attorney still helps us so much, and works behind the scene whenever he can. We will never be able to tell him how much he has meant to us. He has helped navigate us through all the legal terminology and workings, and for that he is an angel.

My mom sold her house and is set to close on April 11th. She will be moving in with us on April 5th. She is excited about this, as she is so lonely in her house. Her house has had very little going on in it for the last few months. It is not the plan she had for herself, but after $20,000 in legal fees, if she ever hopes to get the house in the back built, this is how it has to be. It is funny though, because we all still need each other right now, and it feels right to have her close.

I talk to Nathan three times a week and visit him on Saturdays. We are actually closer now than we have ever been. He has to be truthful, and for once he answers questions my mother and I ask him. Over the years I think he will learn a lot about himself, and the best we can hope for him is that he grows, and chooses to be the best man he can be.

He told me the other day that his cellie (cell mate), told him that he pictured God looking over Nathan's life plan, saying"...uh huh, yes, OK I like that, wait...what the...oh no... oh hell no...", and put his ass in a big time out.
I like to think that's true.

Amazing.

That is what I am calling my new discovery. Well, it's not exactly my new discovery, but I did try it out and...well...it's amazing.
I love me some dark purple/black nail polish but hate, hate, hate the dry time. Last time I painted them I woke up with sheet marks on three of my nails and was furious. Well, I read that you can paint your nails as usual and then spray them with cooking spray. The chemicals in the cooking spray and the chemicals in the polish just dry it right up. My dry in under 20 minutes nails and I are loving ozone killing chemicals today.

Look at my new sassy-ness. A bit darker. All the better to not show my roots!

When bad things happen to good fish.

The new fish only made it one day at our house. They both died. So long 'Goldie number 2' and 'I not know'. You were good fish while you lasted.

To Annaliese,

One day, when you are older, you won't remember this day, January 25, 2008 won't mean too much, but to me it meant something, so I thought I would put it in print for you to read.
Today was a hard day for you, one of the worst you might have had yet. But you handled it with grace and dignity, and I am so proud.
You started off the day by waking up to a dead fish. A fish that you purchased last year when mommy and daddy came back from Las Vegas. You named "her" Goldie, and everyday you reminded me to feed her. Because you knew, from watching my track record with feeding you, your brother, and Milsap, that if you don't speak up you may not eat. Knowing she was voiceless and couldn't at least catch crumbs when they fell to the floor, you became a good little activist and every morning said "Mommy, Goldie". Just two words, but I knew what it meant. "She"was a good fish and it taught you a little bit about responsibility and taking care something else. It wasn't easy seeing her floating, face in the rocks, today. You cried for about 15 minutes. Although selfishly, I didn't mind you crying too much. Because that is one of the rare times,when I ask if I can hold and hug you, you actually let me.
You then went from your dead fish house to Ginny's, where you got overly excited, blurted out the word penis, and had to embarrassingly sit in time out. God, that word is going to be the absolute death of me. At the rate you use it, people are convinced that your father and I walk around, saying, "Well penis head what would you like for dinner?", "I don't know penis butt, what would you like?" Well, maybe we do, but not when you and your brother are awake.
It kept getting worse, when on the way to school you told me to not forget to sign you up to go see Nathan next week. I constantly forget how much loss you feel over your uncle. He has left a void in all of our lives, and we struggle daily to come to terms with the reality of it all. You are so little and yet you seem to be the strongest of us all. You have only cried one time since he has been gone, yet you talk about him everyday. In everything he has done, he never realized the effect it could have on you, and he tells me to tell you how sorry he truly is. Unfortunately for both of you, sorry doesn't mean as much to a five year old, as having her uncle running through the mall and buying her candy at the store does.
Lastly, once you got to school, Mrs. B, greeted you not with a smile but with a talk in hushed voices. I knew that you had done something wrong, but I couldn't hear the conversation. Once you walked into the classroom, with shoulders slumped, she proceeded to let me in on the news. Yesterday, in your classroom, you said that there were no boys in the class yet. Then, once a few boys came in you said, "Oh great, now there are boys here. No boys allowed." Wow. The horror. Ms. B, apparently forgetting that she taught pre-k, told me that she told you that everyone is welcome and we don't talk that way. That I have no problem with, but bringing it up the next day, to embarrass you in front of you mother, I don't get it. She made the most upset and disappointed face. I stood there speechless. It made me so sad. She thought that what you did, was so bad, it was worth it to her, to start your day off on a bad note. I went straight to you, hugged your tiny shoulders, and told you you would have a wonderful day, and you could have two cookies at the mall tonight.
I love you so much, little one, and I am sorry about today.
Mommy

Elmo Undies

It looks like the boy might not be wearing pull-ups to kindergarten.
Well, maybe.
After about two hours of running the toilet, he cries and wants his diaper back on, so he can resume peeing the way God intended. On the couch. Watching Spongebob.

Hello. Is Anybody Out There?

I have Don looking around for some new designs. I got sick of the old one, but I can't seem to get out of the pink/black background. Yeah well, you can't win 'em all. More posts to follow.