Well, I had such a good evening tonight that I just had to come here and write it all down so that I will remember it. I started working on dinner shortly after JJ's mom picked him up. We had Romaine salad with a shredded four cheese blend and some "Fake-o's" (instead of Bacos) sprinkled on top. I baked some little bagel pizza bites, and spent time chopping fresh pineapple and strawberries into chunks. It was a yummy dinner! We had some whipped cream -- the kind in the whipping can -- with our fruit, and I only squirted it all over myself once during dinner.

Then I took a movie back to RedBox (we have one outside our Hy-Vee store, I love it! http://www.redbox.com/) and drove over to Lowe's, where Mike had taken the boys. I wanted to surprise them, and it was so fun! I snuck up behind them and growled, and they got all excited and started yelling to Mike "Mommy's here!! MOMMY's here!!!" like I was the coolest person ever.  I find it hard to believe that I got that reaction from them after spending all day with them at home. I definitely don't get the "Mommy's here!!!" reaction when I walk into the toy room to check on them when they have been playing with GeoTrax for an hour and the quiet makes me wonder what they are up to.

Anyway, while we were walking through Lowe's, Bonnie called and asked me to meet her at Starbucks, which I was glad to do after having a child's-activity-filled day. It was nice to

okay, I can't figure out why the heck the font just changed to italic. It's not the italic button at the top of the screen... so the rest of my post will be in italic. So that must mean that it is REALLY REALLY important. Yeah.

Anyway.

Okay, it changed back. Weird. I'll have to ask Mike about that later.

Um. What was I saying?

Oh yeah. It was nice to spend some time talking about someone else's life and adventures for a while and get some perspective on my own life. Sometimes you just want people to know where you are coming from so that you know you are not completely crazy for thinking and acting the way you do. You know? I know, that made SO much more sense in my head. See? I had to go and write it down for everyone to see, and now I really DO look crazy. SHEESH.

I came home from spending some lovely time with my dear friend (we got to go to Hy-Vee after coffee, and then she had to run because it was almost time for Diamond to be needing her Mommy!), and Mike was working away on my laundry room shelves!! Hip-hip HOORAY!!!!! And after much struggling, some (don't read the next word, Mom and Mama G.) swearing, and much heavy lifting, muscle straining, wet-sock-removing (yeah, the washer hose had come off), broom-diggin-behind-the-dryer FUN, we finally... Well, okay. MIKE finally got the shelves up and secured to the wall. Those shelves aren't going ANYwhere! We even put some stuff on them. It's too late for me to do anything but sit here and type right now, but tomorrow I will have fun de-cluttering some other areas of my house and, well, cluttering up the shelves.

Okay, so without further ado, here are some pictures. The first one is the man I love more than life itself. He is my husband, the father of our two gorgeous children, and he is willing to do anything to take care of his family. And check out those eyelashes! Okay, they are hard to see in this picture, but trust me, they are long! Sammy definitely got those from Daddy. He really didn't want me to take this picture, but his hard work shows, and he needs some praise for how hard he works for this family!

The next picture is the pile of clothes that came out from behind and beside our dryer. When you pull the clothes out of the laundry chute, they tend to fall... well... behind or beside the dryer.

The next picture is my new laundry room. Someday I'll paint it, but really functionality is so important to me that paint can wait. Plus, it will require unhooking and rehooking the washer/dryer... and who wants to do THAT?

Isn't it beautimus? And tomorrow, Mike will be getting another piece of white board from Lowe's to put under the door to the laundry chute so that we won't lose any more clothes in the Black Hole.

I did other fun stuff today, like we went over to my sister's house and cooked lunch (Orange Chicken, brownies, pierogies (little pastries with potatoes and cheese inside) and glass bottles of root beer. Yeah, so it wasn't the healthiest of meals, but we had fun watching the boys play. Sammy and Miguel are going to be such good friends as they grow up! It is fun watching their personalities develop.

Okay, I'm tired, and it's almost

darn, it's PAST midnight.

Going to bed now.