Eric came home today.  It’s always so weird after he’s been gone a few days and then he’s there again.  It’s like I’ve just figured out to function with just me and the girls.  But, I am really happy he’s back home.  Now I can take a shower without worrying about where Erica is going to run off to.  I can have awhile down here without feeling rushed. 

After I picked him up from the airport I stopped by Hobby Lobby to buy some of the Autumn Leaves clear stamps, but of course they were out of the one I wanted.  I did however find packaged Bazzill Bling Cardstock.  Okay, I know I already have two sheets of every single color, but it was on sale and it’s so pretty.

Of course I had Archiver coupons that expired today so we stopped there too.  I got all kinds of fun stuff.  I got the pink case for my CropODile.  Almost went for the whole new green ensemble, but I don’t care for green and I already have a cropodile.  They had the cutest Making Memory RubOns that made their way home with me.  There was also this Around the Block Label Maker that I decided I needed.  Like my Dymo label maker won’t work just as well.  I’m thinking next time I might have to get the Label Hanger thing by them too.  Again, I don’t know if I’ll end up ever using it, but I don’t want to miss out on something!

I had dinner in the crockpot so as soon as we got home I was able to just heat up some beans and whip up that corn with cream cheese in it (I learned this from Vickie) and then served it with the BBQ Beef Sandwiches.  Dinner was a big hit with not only Eric (who prefers to eat at home), but also the girls!  Yay!  And then for dessert we had Strawberry Shortcake.  I just love this time of year when all the fun fruits start coming out.  Seedless watermelon, berries, peaches, yum!

Well, Eric is feeling kind of neglected that he’s home finally and I’m downstairs on the computer.  If he would just get me a laptop, it wouldn’t be an issue now would it? 

when DH gets home tomorrow and see how much I spent on toys tonight.

See it all started with Erica getting ahold of a Matchbox car and totally digging those. So I thought, we should run out and get her about $20 worth and she’ll think she’ll be in heaven. And then today I ordered her a My Little Pony Apron which brought me back down memory lane when My Little Pony was in when I was growing up, and I remember the older girls playing with them, and 3 sounded like a good number to get her started.

Of course if I buy Erica something then I have to buy the other two girls something of equal value. Then we ran across this Vtech computer with a mouse that she about fell over when she saw it. (Loves to pretend she’s working like her Daddy). And then they had these cool gigantic coloring books, which means new crayons. And the white board markers were right there for her white board/chalkboard, and Ducks were down the next isle… You get the picture? So, I think I might be in trouble!

I found this on Angela’s blog and thought it was kind of fun!  So here’s my seven weird things about myself…

1.  When presented with a plate of food (or not even on a plate) I can only eat one thing at a time.  For instance I HAVE to eat and finish my mashed potatoes before I can move on to meatloaf.

2.  When getting on my computer first thing in my day, I have to first check my emails, then check the forums, and then check Paypal to see what our balance is before usually stumbling into eBay to buy some kind of clear stamp set!  This is the same for me before I go to bed too.

3.  When we check into a hotel, I have to have everyone’s things unpacked and put away neatly first!  Then after that, I will usually sit down and read the hotel’s little book on their amenities and so forth.

4.  I have to have all my clothes hanging.  The exception of course would be socks and undergarments.  Nothing else gets folded!

5.  When scrapbooking, before I can move on to another project I have to totally clean up my mess and reorganize myself, which usually tends to lead to reorganizing a drawer or my entire room.

6.  In the laundry room, I have to have 3 bottles of Fabric softener lined up, 3 bottles of All Fabric Bleach, 2 large bottles of bleach (that’s as deep as my shelf is), 4 bottles of Laundry Detergent and 2 tubs of Oxiclean at ALL times.  I guess I’m afraid of running out, I don’t know!

7.  Between cooking dinner and calling the family to the table I HAVE to have all the dishes cleaned that I used to get dinner ready.  I also have to have the entire kitchen cleaned before I even begin cooking dinner.

Okay, that’s me.  That’s my quirky little things that I’m sure drives my husband nutsy, but I’m sure he loves me for them anyway.  Life would be so dull for him if these didn’t exist, I’m sure!

Okay, I said yesterday that there were two people that recognized Eric at the Atlanta, Georgia airport as Eric Graham the Conversion Doctor.  That was already weird enough for me.  Apparently he has had several people come up and ask him to autograph their programs and even more than that ask to have their picture taken with him.  He hasn’t had to pay for a meal since he stepped off the plane.  He has several of the big timers (well I guess he’s one too) want to join up with him in some joint ventures.  He spoke today on Webinars and it went over extremely well!  I am so proud of him, but just have a hard time seeing him like that!  He’s Eric.   A very understanding, compassionate husband and a very caring, doting father.

While my Eric has been rubbing elbows with the big wigs, I have been home with my darling little girls.  They have been on their absolute best behavior.  They have all gotten along so well.  And they have obeyed every single time I’ve asked them to do something…

Ouch!  Don’t wake me up from my dream!  Okay, well maybe they haven’t been quite all of those things.  For a better part of the day they have been screeching at the top of their lungs, fighting with each other, tattling with each other, disobeying almost every word I’ve said to them.  And just when I think about running into my bedroom and pull out my hair, they do something sweet.  Ally (who is usually frightened of her younger sister and had about had it with her this morning) hugged Erica and told her she was a good little sister except when she’s evil.  Then tonight at dinner Erica gave Jackie the biggest hug and told her that she was Jackie’s Erica.  Just about melted my heart.  Where is the camera when you need it?  Oh, in Georgia!  Now, they are back to bickering and pouring sprinkles and Swiffer Wet Jet solution all over the playroom floor.

I’ve got quite a bit of laundry caught back up, but I’m sure my angelic little girls will bring me down twice what I washed today, tomorrow when they clean their rooms and bathroom.  I got the kitchen and my bedroom all sparkly clean.  The family room, dining room, and Eric’s office are pretty good.  And my scraproom is all tidy too.  That just leaves me with the playroom.  But if I don’t get it done, it’s not a big deal.  Eric always gets after me when I stress out about it and tells me that cleaning the playroom with Erica so little is like shoveling the driveway in the middle of a blizzard.  So I tend to like to think of it that way when the rest of the house looks good.

Ah, it is finally bedtime.  Off to fold a load of laundry, watch a tiny bit of TV and then off to dreamland again where my kids are all perfectly well behaved. 

We have been on the go all day long and I am trying so hard to want to stay awake for at least the next couple of hours.  If I put Erica to bed too early, she’ll think she took a nap and be up almost half the night. 

I am a single Mom this weekend.  Eric left today for a seminar in Georgia.  Erica had a hard time understanding why she couldn’t go on the airplane with her Daddy.  But she’s been kept so busy she hasn’t really had much time to think about it.  It was so cute though last night she packed up all her clothes in her suitcase, a tote bag and a big shopping bag as she seemed to be under the impression that her Daddy would never dream of not taking her with him!

After we dropped off Eric at the airport, we putzed around with our emails, and then called a couple of friends to see if they wanted to go with us to the SD Liquidation Sale.  Sara said she would go with us but we had to swing by 2 Scrappy Sisters first to meet up with Deb.  Of course while we were waiting for Deb, I had to buy something!  I didn’t want to be rude!  Saw Ali and Kara there and got to chat with them for awhile.  Erica was happy Zion came with his Mommy.

Deb showed up and brought little Taylor with her.  This has got to be one of the cutest little girls I’ve ever seen!  And she has been through so much over the last couple of months.   I just want to scoop her up and give her a giant hug every time I see her.

After 2 Scrappy Sisters, Sara and I headed out to Independence.  En route I got a phone call from Eric telling me he had landed and was on his way to the hotel.  He was feeling like kind of a celebrity too, as he had already had a couple of people at the airport recognize him.  It’s so weird for me to think of him that way.

When we got to Independence I was amazed at how super busy they were!  The whole time we were there (and it was a long time) there was a constant stream of people coming in and most of them bought.  Which is a very happy thing because that will help satisfy some of the SD creditors. 

It was kind of sad and weird being back in the store after so long and seeing so much picked through.  I so badly wanted to go around and straighten things out!  Ran into Susanne there too.  I got some stuff.  Erica picked out way more than I did.  Like entire rolls of sticker sheets of Sesame Street characters.  That was always her favorite thing to do when she went to the store is buy a sheet of stickers and a piece of printer paper, and she would scrapbook while I shopped or chatted with the girls.

I called Christy on my way home and talked to her about everything.  And she was happy to hear that things were going pretty well out there today.  And there’s still two more days of the sale, so she’s hopeful that will help with expenses and creditors.  I was glad to hear her in such great spirits about the whole thing.  It’s a pretty significant step to closure for her and the stores. 

Once I picked up the girls I took them to IHOP.  They have been begging me forever to take them.  So I figured this would be the perfect opportunity.  While we were there, Erica had a complete meltdown!  Which anyone who has ever seen my kid in public knows that just never happens.  She was sitting there one moment just fine and then all of a sudden she just flops herself down in the seat and starts kicking.  I turned to her and told her to stop and she just starts bawling, “I can’t”.  Jackie was convinced she was having a seizure as it happened just so out of the blue!  I actually thought I was going to have to drag all of the kids out before dinner came.  But then she stopped just as suddenly as she began.  I think she was just worn out and missing her Daddy. 

So here we are, biding our time until it’s finally bedtime.  I was planning on cleaning my room and doing some laundry today, but that can wait.  I always love making the house look a thousand times time better than it did than when Eric left.  It gives him the illusion that I handled it all just fine. 

Well I’ve finally done it!  I lost one of my blog posts and I am so frustrated!  I know exactly how it happened too.  I had someone try to post two comments to my blog and it was from an email address that I didn’t recognize.  So, I emailed this person to ask if I knew them.  Don’t want to be putting weirdo posts out there you know?  Well the emailed bounced back and said the address didn’t exist.  So I called a couple of friends that I thought it might have been to ask them if it was them that posted the comments.  They said they hadn’t.  So this morning after no one claimed the comment, I went in and deleted the comments.  Well apparently Eric says I also deleted my post!  Great! 

I don’t know who is more bummed, Eric or myself.  He was pretty happy about the nice things I wrote not only about him, but some of my other friends.  So for anyone who is curious about what the missing post was about here is a rough recap:

- I had just returned from an impromptu dinner with Christy, Karen and Kerry celebrating Christy’s new raise and promotion!  It was pretty awesome since she just got offered the permanent position just a few weeks ago!

- I was so happy for her because she has gone through a lot of crap the last 6 months as a result of something she never meant to happen resulting in close friends that she would have done anything for just jumping ship when everything got rocky slandering her behind her back.  Her Grandfather has been in the hospital and is not doing well at all.  I’m just so happy for her that she is pulling her life back together.

- I’m excited about an upcoming crop at Christy’s house.  We just had an all weekend crop not too long ago at Vickie’s and an evening crop there as well just a few nights back. There is about 25 of us in our group that have vowed to remain friends (and not the backstabbing type either) and still get together to crop!  It’s always such a fun production with all of us together!

- I’m so proud of my Eric.  He had a webinar this week with Michel Fortin who is a huge name in Eric’s world!  It was very exciting and went very well!  His business has taken off this year and it has been our best year ever financially and emotionally for our family!

- Oh and I also posted that it’s not the comments from the “Peanut Gallery” who call me a “LardA** BFF” that bothers me so much, but the fact that I had ripped my favorite pair of pants (still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it), but I seriously have to get back to eating better like I was doing before our cruise.

I think that’s about it (I’m sure I’m probably leaving something out)!  Of course it was all worded so much better when I originally posted.  Oh and to whoever posted the two comments, please email me and let me know who you are.  I don’t want to miss out on posting your comments!

We started off today with a play date at Zona Rosa with some of the girls on the Serendipity Scraps forum.  Erica had so much fun.  It took her about 10 minutes before she would even begin thinking about it, but it was too long before she warmed up to the idea of playing with so many kids!  Of course it was also a great photo op!  And it was so nice getting me meet some of the girls that I had yet met in real life.

Here’s a picture of Erica playing on the fruit:

I finally got around to finishing my DT project for Serendipity Scraps too!  Yay!  I had no idea what I was going to work on until 9pm when I decided I better get to work on it (it was due by midnight!).  I wasn’t feeling in the mood to do a layout, so I went to my closet to see what I could alter and here is what I came up with:

Okay, it’s off to bed now!  I’m so tired.  It’s been quite the day.  I’m not even cleaning off my table, and yikes it looks like a tornado went through!  Goodnight!

This came from Sara’s blog (of course).  Had to post it to mine too! 

1. YOUR REAL Name:
Christina Marie Graham

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME:
(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.)
Chrizzle

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME:
(fav color and fav animal)
Purple Dolphin

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME:
(your middle name and the street you live on)
Marie Park Plaza

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME:
(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Grach

6. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME:
(Your 2nd favorite color, and favorite drink).
Pink Water

7. YOUR IRAQI NAME:
(2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, and last letter of your moms middle name)
Harhmbn (What?!?)

8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:
(parents middle names)
Ann John

9. YOUR GOTH NAME:
(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Fishy

I got this from Sara’s blog.  Looked like fun!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4. Type what it says here: “…fed him people food.  So, whenever William was around people food, he wanted it so…”

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What’s there? Prima Flowers.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV? Tool Time

4. Without looking, guess what time it is: 5:30pm

5. Now look at the clock. What is the actual time? 5:30

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear? Christy’s talking to me on my cell phone, Erica playing with her car, Jackie closing my fridge.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing? Went to dinner last night with Christy, Karen and Kerry.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at? PBSKIDS.ORG

9. What are you wearing? Jeans and tshirt

10. Did you dream last night? I don’t remember

11. When did you last laugh? Just a few moments ago when Erica walked in with a beany hat all ready to go!

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in? A clock, layout, a fantastic shelf with the initials of each one of my girls that Vickie made for me, Primas.

13. Seen anything weird lately? Yeah, that’s what made me laugh.

14. What do you think of this quiz? I love stuff like this.  It’s always a neat way to learn more about people.

15. What is the last film you saw? Dick and Jane on DVD.

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
first?? A new house of our own with all new furniture and two new cars.  And then the Ultimate building for Pretty Girl to turn into the Ultimate K 

17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know: I didn’t even get dressed today until a half an hour ago.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do? Drive through grocery stores!  Now that’s deep right? 

19. Do you like to dance? Like and can are two totally different things

20. George Bush: Yes.  I think no matter whether you agree with who is in office it’s a tough job that I know I wouldn’t want to do.  And the position deserves respect.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her? I called her Jacquelynn.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him? Kenneth Lee (Kenneth after Eric’s Grandpa and Lee is Eric’s and his Dad’s middle name).

23. Would you ever consider living abroad? Nope.

24. What do you want to say to God when you reach the pearly gates? Did I live my life worthy enough to be able to get in?

Blogging that is!  Oh my heck!  I just spent the last hour or so going to visit all of my friends’ blogs!  It amazes me how different each one looks and they truly reflect their personalities!  What a great way to keep everyone updated with each other’s lives!

It all started with Sara sparking me into wanting to be better about keeping my blog updated.  And then Kara found my blog yesterday!  Which was such a treat!  It’s been forever since I’ve heard about what she’s up to!  And upon visiting her fabulous blog I found Dana and Jessica!  What a great night.

Then I woke up this morning to find Vera had posted a comment to my blog too!  So of course I had to go find her blog and that girl has some wisdom.  She posts some things that are really deep and make you think.  And the absolutely adorable pictures of her kiddos are too precious.

So girls, I want to thank you all for making me want to be a better blogger and I am so grateful to have each one of you as part of my life!  Thank you!  And here’s to better blogging!

Okay, now off to work on my Design Team project for this week for Serendipity Scraps!