My latest Cake Design - I love the spring colors! In my latest cake decorating class I learned to make all these gorgeous flowers.

Rylee, Ashley and I got ready for church last week before anyone else - what else is there to do but take pictures by the side of our house.

The kid quiz

After reading Maria Whiteheads latest blog - it was so cute I had to quiz my kids and here are their answers:

What does your mom say the most often?
Rylee: go to sleep
Ashley: brush your teeth
Kaitlyn: Take your meds

What can you do to make your mom happy?
Rylee: Clean up
Ashley: Clean my room
Kaitlyn: Be nice to my sisters

What do you do that makes your mom sad?
Rylee: Not listen to her
Ashley: Cry
Kaitlyn: Not be nice to my sisters

What does your mom do to make you laugh?
Rylee: Tickle me
Ashley: Pinch me
Kaitlyn: tell a funny joke

How old is your mom?
Rylee: 17
Ashley: 29 or 35
Kaitlyn: 29

What does your mom like to do for fun?
Rylee: reads a book
Ashley: lots of stuff
Kaitlyn: workout

What is your mom not good at?
Rylee: Art
Ashley: I can't think of anything
Kaitlyn: Thats too hard of a question

What does your mom like to do with you?
Rylee: play with me
Ashley: go to the mall or the doctor
Kaitlyn: we really need to do something

What is the same about you and your mom?
Rylee: our eyes
Ashley: our hair
Kaitlyn: our style

What is different about you and your mom?
Rylee: we don't wear the same clothes
Ashley: we don't have the same color eyes
Kaitlyn: if I say yes, she says no

The Story about Communication & the Water Bill

Once upon a time - there was a family who lived in Houston Texas, the kids were out of school on spring break, the dad was working in Corpus Christie and the mom was working semi-part time doing inspections all over the Houston metro-plex. One morning, the mom woke up and tried to turn on the shower to get ready for another great day. Only, on this day, the shower would not turn on. So the mom, being a great inspector - started checking all the pipes and other water fixtures - NONE of them were working. Quickly she went to the neighbors, if they had no water, there could be a main break, the neighbors water worked fine.

She thought to herself, surely, her very organized, money smart husband paid the water bill. So, she began to look for the water bill to call the water company and tell them that there was a problem. But, the water bill was no where to be found. In desperation mode, she called her husband..... (and this is where the story gets good)

The dad says "of course I paid the bill, I will check my online banking and tell you when it will go thru and how much". The mom "Wait... what do you mean by when it will go thru, are you telling me that it hasn't gone thru yet" she was trying so hard not to get hesterical. "Well, NO, it clears on Friday" said the dad. And he began to explain "I read the bill and it didn't make any sense, we paid on time last month and that was just a few weeks ago, so I don't know why the bill said past due, but it was wrong". Trying to understand the mom said "so the bill said PAST DUE, but you knew that it was wrong, and called them and talked to them about it, right"? "um, no - I didn't call them, but I know that I am right" said the dad in a very quiet voice.

Lets just shorten the story - The dad being one who doesn't like to make phone calls, looked over the bill, thought about it, and came to the decision that he was right and the water company was wrong, and paid the bill LATE.

The mom being one who likes to have running water at the house - went and paid the bill and pleaded that her husband was at fault and was out of town (where she couldn't ring his neck) please, please, please, turn the water back on.

One hour later her husband calls to say "its OK - by this weekend we will have overpaid and then we will be ahead" and he was happy............ The mom being a smart mom, decided to blog about it in effort that one day he will read the story and know that she loved him. BUT - she was right and that he needed to work on his communication skills.

Fun at the zoo

With work being slow and the girls on Spring Break, I decided yesterday afternoon to "take the monkeys to see the monkeys" we had a great time! We love the Fort Worth Zoo - but I gotta tell ya that the Houston Zoo was awesome!

Michelle's ADD Playlist

I feel that it is important to explain some of my music on my playlist for any of you who check my blog and find one of my crazy songs playing. Anyone who knows me for more than a few minutes knows that I love the 80's so for Erasure, The Cure, Morrissey or Aerosmith to be on my playlist is not a surprise.

But there are some that need explanation - Believe it or not - theme song for the TV show "Greatest American Hero" was one of my fathers favorite shows and when this show came on he sang this song with all the power his lungs would allow, this song makes me smile. Elvira by the Oakridge Boys was another song that I feel in love with because of my dad - we used to sing "getty up a bump bapa bumpbapa moe moe, high hoe silver away" with the lowest deep voice we could - it made riding the car a blast! I still like to sing it to my girls - Rachel gets so embarrassed - Awesome!

Singing in the Rain, Uptown Girl and Bird Dog are all songs that remind me of my mom - she loved Billy Joel, she taught us to sing in the rain, and she looooved 50's music!

I used to HATE Country Music until going to El Paso where I learned very quickly that there were ZERO good radio stations. I went thru a time while there where I was a tad bit depressed, and then I found country music - where the people in the songs were going thru a lot worse than me - I found it made me cry and laugh all at the same time.... much needed free therapy! Listening to Country music drives John and Rachel CRAZY - which makes me want to laugh.

I love music and have learned to love all types of music - confession time - I can't get used to the Jonas Brothers no matter how much Rachel tells me they Rock - I just don't care for them. Sorry Rach!

If I didn't have music in my life - I couldn't drive a car, workout, clean house, ignore kids, I just wouldn't be me. So to all the great artist in the world - Thank-you!

Saint Patricks Day

Saint Patricks day is just around the corner, I need to let you in on a secret - this is My dad's and my favorite holiday. Yes, I said holiday. I learned from him to be the first one to wake up in the morning - put on as much green as possible and then pinch everyone in the house who isn't wearing green. Which of course is EVERYONE! I love the old Irish silly songs, sometimes I don't wear green just so I can get pinched.

I truly believe that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. My four leaf clover is my 4 gorgeous daughters - they are so fun and full of life. Yes - there are minutes when I want to pull my hair out and scream "Calgon TAKE ME AWAY" (which I have tried and unfortunately it doesn't work). The rainbow is this life we are living, it is long and mostly uphill, but the end results will be awesome!

Me vs Lawnmower

With John being gone so much - I have found that we are not communicating like we used to. Its really tough having a husband only on the weekends and I have made the mistake of teasing and saying that I am a single mom - this is not a good idea to tease in front of the kids - for some reason they start to repeat you to their teachers - such as Kaitlyn trying to tell her teacher that she didn't have time to finish her homework because she had too many chores - she HAD to help her single mom!!

This weekend John and I got in to a fight regarding the decision to buy a new lawnmower - my side is: Lawnmowers cost too much - both of our incomes have been reduce drastically. Johns side (as usual) was simple: My lawn must look good. And that was our fight - I gave him a dirty look and left the room, refused to talk to him for about an hour and then I asked him if he was hungry and SOOOO we went out to eat instead of getting a lawnmower.

Final Cake Design for Class

Roses.... they were so hard for me to learn - but I think I finally got it! I made a ton more roses than would fit on the cake normally you would have numbers like 3, 6, 9 or 12 roses. Oh well... the girls didn't see any flaws when they ate it!