I worked 8 days (80 hours) this last time around. It's amazing how much more exhausted I felt with just 1 extra day.

My bed felt so good last night….so good that I stayed in it for almost 10 hours. (For me-that is insane!)

Our weekend was pretty jam packed. X played a softball game Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday's game was pretty amazing as the girls came from way behind to end up winning 12-8.

Today, on the other hand, was not as amazing.

Here's the girls lined up for the closing prayer, some of them wiping tears away from their 13-5 loss.

Sadly, after X had just struck out and was walking back into the dugout, one of her teamates decided to yell (where everyone could hear her), "X_chy–You're the reason we're loosing!"

She was in tears before she even hit the dugout.

I was furious. The girls parents (who sat next to me) didn't do anything so I marched in that dugout and called the girl over and made her apologize. X was still pretty shook up about the comment but was able to get a hit the next time up to bat (whereas rude-comment girl struck out her next two times up to bat.) I was quite thankful to God for bringing that carma.

This was also her last softball game of the season. There are two more games but we'll be visiting my family in Indiana that weekend. I think she's happy to be done.

——–

Saturday night our friends Cortney & Josh and their 3 kiddos came over for dinner and play. 

The kids had a blast. I'm pretty sure that at least one kid was screaming at any given time in the evening. Regardless, we managed to catch up on all life's details with each other while making dinner and drinking wine. That's my kind-of night!

Little Max was so adorable checking out Bella (to which E quickly responded with, "my Bella." )

Bella was quite a hit with eveyone really.

Thanks for a great evening Devine family!

——–

I had to take E to the doctor Saturday morning. He told me after school on Friday "I have boo-boo on my pee-pee". I was quite concerned by that statement and even more concerned after checking it out.

The poor little guy was in so much pain going to the bathroom and taking a bath Friday night. As it turns out the skin just ripped (possibly due to the extra handling its getting since we're using the potty now).  

He's doing much better now except he's describing his boo-boo to anyone who will listen (i.e. "my pee-pee bleeding" or "Dr. Garza look at my pee-pee")

Well, to Ryan's relief, I am finished with all of the Harry Potter books.

I thought I'd be happy to be done, but somehow I'm sad that there isn't more. All I have to say is that I'm so happy there was an Epilouge.

——

I spoke too soon about X staying in her room at night. The very moment I walked out of the office after writing my last blog post she came out her door (as if she knew I'd just written those words).

She continued with the madness last night as well. So we were forced to pull out punishments from the reserve: if you come out tomorrow night you will lose your room and start sleeping in Krys's old room.

She was not happy with that prospect and (yet again) promised she would make the right choice.

I tried to explain (yet again) about how it has way more to do with making good choices than it does with an early bedtime and staying in your room. I'm praying she understands and doesn't come out tonight.

——-

Work has been very good this week. I've not had any problem staying awake at night and have been sleeping great during the day. 

It is starting to get fairly lonely and boring, however. I've finished all my big projects of cleaning and reorganizing and have been forced to really search for things to do some nights to keep me busy.

I don't think it will change much with the slowness of summer upon us but I'm certainly not complaining. The schedule has been the biggest blessing ever for us. 

——-

LASIK is put on hold for a minimum of 6 months. 

I went to the doctor again yesterday and because my eyes keep getting worse there is fear that the LASIK won't keep for very long. I appreciated his honesty and gladly accepted new glasses, contacts and an appt for 6 months from now.

——-

I haven't taken very many pictures at all lately. (Nothing really to shoot.) Hopefully this weekend I'll have the oppurtunity because I feel like a part of me is missing (weird, I know!)

Meh. My week off is over. It's been a fabulously relaxing week though so I'm not complaining too much!

Couple updates about the kiddos:

X has continued her fight against sleep everyday since I last wrote about it. It's like she thought it was some sort of game.

This week I decided to start taking away a pair of shoes each night if she came out of her room.

She lost 4 pairs of shoes before we finally hit the peak of the mountain last night.

All because she fell asleep at her desk in school yesterday afternoon. Her teacher was rightfully concerned as to why this would happen. I, however, knew exactly why.

After a very long discussion on the subjects of sleep and obedience I think she finally realized we weren't going to budge and stayed in her room (with the lights off-which was becoming another issue) all night long.

On a happier note, she has been doing fantastic with her piano lessons. Last night she successfully played Old MacDonald and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

——-

E has been sleeping phenomenal lately. We've been having to actually wake him up to go to school (one day at 9am!!)

He successfully pee'd in the potty last night after choosing himself to sit on it. 

With the potty training becoming more of a topic lately, he has found a new favorite pasttime: he names every "boy" and "girl" he knows and asks if they have a "pee-pee". I'm sorry to say that most every family member and friend has been brought up in discussion as to whether or not they have a "pee-pee". It's quite humurous.

——–

Ryan has been doing great. Enjoying the lack of CPS paperwork and the increased work coming into Axiocentric.

And for me, I'm on to book #6.

I tried to stay up as late as possible last night so that I would be tired enough to take a nap this evening before heading into work tonight. I made some serious headway into The Half-Blood Prince.

And yes, I did pick up book #7 at the library yesterday as well. I'm pretty sure I can finish both of them before the week is over (without neglecting anything but the blog).

If I don't post anything-that's why.

For many years I did not read for pleasure. I can probably count on 2 hands all of the books I had read since college.

That all changed after reading Twilight.

Interestingly enough, I had always been adament that I would never read Harry Potter. I knew I would never enjoy that type of story. And since I'm being honest, I thought all the people who did read them and love them were freaks.

But alas, I must offer my apologies to those people. Most specifically some of my Medical Walgreens friends (I keenly remember how much I rolled my eyes and made fun at you when the last movie came out and you were all super excited.)

I say this because I'm coming clean.

I'm totally obsessed with Harry Potter right now.

Seriously.

It took me a bit to get through the first three and I almost stopped there but decided to try book #4 Goblet of Fire to see if I could get back into it. Obviously, I did.

Mainly because Harry has finally become old enough to have a love interest. 

Over the past couple days I've pretty much did nothing but read book #5 Order of the Phoenix (all 900 pages). I tried to finish working on my 2007 scrapbook yesterday morning but couldn't stop thinking about the book (because I knew Harry kissed Cho at some point and I was desperate to get to there) so I gave up and sat on the front porch all day reading.

After finishing it around 3:30 this afternoon I almost drove to the library to pick up book #6 Half Blood Prince…..but decided that my marriage is more important.

Ryan thinks I'm wasting time. 

Yet he sat with me and watched the Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire movies back to back Saturday night.

Thank you to the friends who convinced me to start reading them. I've totally enjoyed my "Harry Potter-week".

After last year's season of loosing, it feels great to be winning.

X had a game on Saturday and Sunday. 

Saturday was a forced win as the other team didn't have enough girls show up to play. They scrimmaged anyway and the girls did awesome. (We would have still won had they had enough players.)

Sunday's game was also pretty awesome. 

X had 2 hits, 1 strike-out.

She stood on third base as though she hadn't a care in the world. (Which-really she doesn't….but still.)

I (kindly) hollered to her to get ready to run home as soon as the ball is hit.

Just then, the ball was hit.

Look at that girl. I'm glad she listens to her Mama.

This is what happens when you add a helmet to the already crazy hair. God bless her for not caring.

Also (not sure if you can see it) X's front teeth are finally breaking through. 

That cute toothless grin will be gone soon and we will be forced to welcome the awkward "big teeth/little mouth" era.

Oh, Lord. Please give her good teeth.

*the pictures are all weird and blurry because I couldn't get my lens completely through the fence.

Yesterday afternoon we got a wonderful downpour of rain.

With little else to do I let the kids go outside and play in the driveway because, well….they wanted to.

And I'm trying to allow them to do some of the crazy things they want to do. The only reasons I could think of to not let them were all selfish: I didn't want to have to re-fix X's hair, get their clothes changed, etc. Not good enough reasons to say no.

E is so into swimming right now that he wants to wear his new Nemo goggles everywhere.

X followed suit putting on her swim goggles too.

X mentioned how she could do some really awesome power turns in the hummer with this rain (seriously? what happened to my girly-girl?)

To that I was completely ready to say No to but Dad jumped in first by saying, "Sure! I'll get it out for you."

Nice.

They had a blast.

I'm glad that word ALLOW lingers in my head everyday. It helps. 

That and prayer.

I finally got around to checking out pictures from this past Saturday.

Since its my week on I had to sleep during the day. Ryan (being the super-husband & father that he is) took the kids + 1 of Kara & Ian's kids to the Funtastic Playland for the majority of the morning.

(Kara was admitted to the hospital on Friday afternoon and ended up having to have her gallbladder removed Saturday evening….hence the reason we had her son all day.)

After I woke up we all headed outside to play. It is HOT already here in San Antonio so we got the hose out for the kids to get a little wet. Ryan being the kid that he is had just as much fun as the little ones.

I had my 50mm lens (no zoom) on my camera and was sitting in one spot on the driveway, too lazy to move so that I could both Ryan and X in the whole shot.

It may be hard to tell, but E and B (Kara's son) are dressed the exact same.

Crazy girl.

After a while everything that could hold water was filled. Here Ryan is filling up under the hood of the car. And, of course, the bucket on the CAT was filled and dumped several times over.

Bedtime has been difficult for X lately.

We aim for 7pm but ultimately, it's around 7:30 when the lights go out. At 7:30 in the month of May in Texas it's still very sunny outside.

We think this may be the reason she hasn't been sleeping well. Pretty much every night she gets out of bet and lurks around the house. 

Almost every. single. time. we get the living daylights scared out of us becuase she's creeping around trying to find us.

Yesterday she stood outside our bedroom door (this was around 9pm) and waited for me to come out of the room before she jumped out in front of me and said, "Mommy!"

I nearly pee'd my pants.

There is never any reason she can give us as to why she's out of bed. She just is.

It's very frustrating (and creepy).

We had a long talk tonight about why she isn't sleeping and how she's scarying the life out of us every night. I decided to give her some Benadryl to help her sleep. 

She caught on that it was to make her sleep and wasn't very happy about it. So she agreed not to come out of her room unless she was bleeding or has thrown up (guess who came up with those 2 criteria?).

Super, right?

Not so much. Instead, she resorted to screaming tonight. By 7:40 she was hollering "Mommy"as loud as she could. 

I was in the shower so instead she got Daddy. Who wasn't thrilled. 

She couldn't give a reason as to why she called us up there. She just felt like screaming for us.

Arrrgg.

As for E, his bedtime routine couldn't be going better. He has been playing so hard everyday that he goes out like a light.

The cool part is that he has started whispering, "Love you" and "Sweet dreams" to us before we leave.

It is the absolute favorite part of my day.