updates…

hello there everyone!  Thanks for stopping by… man, there are so many of you I can barely keep up! (kidding there…)

So a ton of people (ok like 5) have wished Dave luck on the GMAT and have subsequently asked how it went.  Well, the “unofficial” results are good!  Dave wishes he would have done better, but for not taking math in 10 years, I am impressed.  He had to make a 50 or above in the “quantitative” section and he made a 55 on the unofficial report.  I am proud of him that he’s actually finished it and applied for the Master’s.  Its funny cause there were once so many people who told him that if he quit school, he’d never go back and finish.  They were adament we were somehow screwing our lives up and “ruining” Dave’s future.  (and by we here, I really mean most of these hate-weilding people really meant ME)

 I’m sure that some of those people read this blog.  And you know what I say to them!?   Ok, so no one really wants to know what I say to them, but if you know me well enough then you can *probably* guess what I’d like to shout from the rooftops.  So, here’s to those people- guess what suckers- HE DID IT AND HE’S COMING BACK FOR MORE!  crack-a-lack-a-ding-dongs…   Pending Dave’s acception to the program, he will hold the highest degree in his family AND mine.  I guess to me, its kinda like all those people who are like, “I’m the first college graduate in my family”  Yeah well, Dave will be the first graduate school graduate in his and mine.  I’m extremely proud of him and really, its a little surreal, considering just last year I was still trying to convince him this was a good idea. 

Updates on the girls!!!  Charli is now walking, and has 4 teeth!  Her favorite things to say are “Whats/Who’s that!?” and “Mama mama”  I’d like to pretend that its cause she loves her mommy soooo much she just can’t get me off her mind, but really, she says it when we tell her “No no no no”  She thinks we’re saying “Mama mama ”  She’s pretty funny.  She loves Tori and tries to keep up to her in whatever they’re doing. 

Tori still thinks she’s 2.  We try to tell her, “No!  You’re THREE now!!!!!”  as excitedly as possible- but she says, “Nope, I was 3 on my birthday and now I’m two again”  Its pretty funny.  But, when you ask her to show you how many fingers she is, she’s got that down almost pat- 3 little fingers pop right up!  Recently, she decided that she like the taste of her tongue- OK, really, she fell off her stool in the bathroom and chomped right down on it.  It bled all over the place(I’ll spare those with weak stomachs any pictures) and it still looks like hamburger.  Tori is obsessed with touching it, which freaks me out cause who knows where that “super-virus” is lurking that kills kids in two days. 

Thats about all our updates.  I still miss Oklahoma and the (mostly) sincere, down to earth people that reside there.  I have a lot of people who still mean the world to me and I miss every day.  I know one day we’ll be rich though and I’ll be able to go home whenever I want!  AND I’ll be able to fly my family down too- family that I’ve never been able to get to know cause my parents always moved us around the country.   I miss you Carissa! (and Cam, Steff, Brooke, etc etc!)

Anyway, hopefully you and yours are doing well!  Check back later for updates on Dave’s application status!

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GPS

As previously stated, story time around this joint can be pretty hilarious(see previous post). 

Today we were reading “Dear Bunny“.  In the book, the bunnies write each other letters.  In one of the bunnies letters there is a “P.S.”.  As we were reading, I read the “P.S” and Tori stops me to tell me, “NO mom!  Its G-P-S”  I almost died laughing!  On our Vegas trip, we took Dave’s parents’ Garmin, but we just call it the “GPS”  and so the whole trip Tori heard. “Oh, just look at the GPS”  or “Is it on the GPS”  or “Oh, we don’t need directions, we have the GPS”.  Smart cookie remembered it, even with all the junk floating around in her head… She is sick with an ear infection and sinus infection/cold, and I have bronchitis and a sinus infection from hell… no fun.  We’ve been really gross the last two days and I’m just praying that Charli and Dave don’t get it! 

Speaking of Charli- she is now WALKING!  YEP thats right… I said walking!  She really perfected this at Granny’s, probably cause Granny’s house is mostly tile and since her preferred wardrobe is naked, or a diaper, her little legs probably got pretty cold!  So, now she walks about 10-15 steps without falling, if she’s concentrating.  She’s still in the early stages, where, since she’s perfected crawling, will sometimes just drop so that she can get wherever she’s going faster, but I can’t believe my baby is walking!  Looks like its time for another one!  JUST KIDDING!  We are not pregnant for the record, and do not plan to become pregnant anytime soon…

Dave is just finishing up his last applications for the Master’s and will hopefully have that done by this weekend.  He takes the GMAT on the 16th, so remember to send him subliminal knowledge and say lots of prayers for him.  We’ll know about 4 weeks after he turns in his application if he’s accepted.  I hope so… because we don’t really have a backup plan, and we’re not living at Dale and Rose’s past May.  I’ll go nuts.  Not that I don’t love them, and its really not bad at all, but we need our own place.  And unlike others, we plan on staying gone.  I love my in laws, but our philosophy is, they’ve raised their kids and shouldnt have to keep raising them, or their grandkids.  Likewise, they are not our storage facility; it drives me insane we are storing our stuff here instead of in a storage unit…

Well!  Thats all our news for now!

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It’s Christmas!

Oh man, I am so excited!

You know, I’m really not a huge fan of Christmas.  I find it entirely over commercialized and occasionally, you find scrooges, who instead of making it a joyful time of year, really ruin the magic of it all. 

However, I think the experience of Christmas becomes completely different once you have your own kids.  Tori is hysterical!  One day she LOVES Santa and talks about what he’s going to bring her, the next she says she hates him.  Last night she said, “I don’t want Santa to come, I don’t want him to bring me a ChouChou dolly, and he can’t come”  Its hilarious!  But, I know she’s getting antsy.  All the presents are wrapped upstairs in our room and she thinks she needs to peek all the time!  She doesn’t quite get the secrecy thing yet either!  The girls and Dave bought me something yesterday while I was taking my dear friend Megan to the airport.  On the way home, Tori called me.  She told me they got me a present and so I asked, “WHAT IS IT!!!!???”  I know she’ll tell me, and even though I’m alright keeping it a secret its HILARIOUS watching Dave freak out.  And by freak out, I mean make our two year old daughter start sobbing because he’s yelling at her to not tell cause ITS A SECRET!!!!!  It was soooooo funny.   Tori is no worse for the wear, but she just couldn’t figure out why Daddy was having a spaz attack!  Pretty funny. 

Charli is probably most excited for Christmas because it means her favorite meal: PAPER!!!!  The child is obsessed with paper- and most specifically eating it.  ALL the time.  She will find whatever she can and just chomp away on it.  Its gross, but really funny.  And if you attempt to release the death grip she’s got on it, be prepared for shrieking screams.  Seriously, we could buy her a large package of paper and she’d be tickled pink.  Its SO funny!

I apologize for the lack of pictures lately.  Our computer does not hook up to the internet here, and so we just use my in laws.  Dave, to his credit finally pulled all the pictures off the video camera and digital camera! 

Speaking of Dave, he finished all his finals this past week! YAY!!!!!!!!!  He has a statistics class that he had to make a B in.  Since we’ve moved to Rose and Dale’s its a commute almost 3 times as long as before, so its been difficult to make it to class on time, especially when we drive him because we need the car.  BUT, he pulled it off and got a B+!!!!!!  YAY DAVE!  I am so proud of him and our next big hurdle is the MBA application as well as the GMAT.  Dave is incredibly intelligent, so I’m sure he’ll do wonderful, but none the less, they are all still stressful!

That’s pretty much it for us.  This year is our year with the Payne side, so we’ll be staying here and not travelling, which is great because this past week we’ve been pounded with storm after storm and have had about 12 inches of snow!

We hope everyone is doing well and received our Christmas cards.  Have a Merry Christmas!

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hilarious

So, I/we havent updated this thing in a while.  Sorry… especially since I know some of you are counting on us for your daily comedic relief!  😉 

We are still at Rose and Dale’s and life is getting interesting.  Dave is very busy with school and trying to figure out when to take the GMAT- its like the ACT for grad school.  It sucks.  We bought him a study book for $60, but figured it would be worth it in the end, the problem is the book is HUGE!  So, we talked about it and had tentatively decided that Dave would take a “trial run” test to just get a feel for it, and then he’d know what to really brush up on in the book(thus not having to read the WHOLE thing) then he’d go back and take the test again before we have to turn in his application in February… one problem… one very large, expensive problem- THE GMAT IS $250!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I could not believe that!!!!!!!   I thought maybe like the ACT, around $50-70, maybe double that since its an entrance exam for graduates, but sheesh- nothing, NOTHING like $250…   So, now our plan has changed- hopefully he’ll only need to take it once and we’ll be done with it.  Dave is not exactly excited to take it either- the test is 250 minutes.  Four hours on a Saturday morning- does that sound like fun to anyone normal?  I think not.

Onto the hilarious parts… Charli is growing so fast.  She has one tooth now and loves to talk all the time.  She has started to do this thing with her tongue that cracks me up!  I’ll stick my tongue out at her and she’ll do the same thing- only she puts it back in and out pretty quick and thinks its the greatest thing.   Her favorite places to crawl in grandma’s house are into the formal living room by the grandfather clock- Rose has this little fake plant down on the ground in a little pot- she LOVES to crawl up there and chew on its leaves… yummy.  She is also enthralled with grandma’s “lid drawer”.  All the tupperware lids are in one drawer closest to the floor.  Charli has figured out how to crawl up and on this one small knob, she pulls herself to kneeling.  She then proceeds to open the drawer and somehow get her legs under the open drawer and sits there playing with all the lids for as long as she can stay balanced… occasionally she’ll lose her balance and get stuck underneath the drawer paralyzed in fear.  Its hysterical.

Tori… now she is the really funny one.  She has such an opinion these days- about everything!

The other day Rose was home from work and was going to treat Tori and I to lunch.  I was getting Charli dressed for the day when Tori comes in from helping grandma get ready and says,

“Mom!  Where’s da food”

“What?”

“WHERE’S DA FOOD?!” (as if I really didn’t hear what she had said)

“Sweetie, I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

“WHERE’S DA FOOD?!!!!!!”  (very insistent at this point that its not a difficult question to answer)

“I don’t know Tori, where is it?”

“ITS DOWNSTAIRS!!!!”

“WHAT?”

A few minutes later Rose comes in and asks,

“Did Tori ask you what she was supposed to?”

“Um, she asked me where the food was”

Rose, laughing, says, “She was supposed to ask you where your favorite place to get food is.”

 

Or the other morning, Tori had crawled into bed with us.  Dave had left to go get in the shower and she looked at me and said,

“Now I’m gonna go get some nem n nems!” (M&Ms)

“Oh yeah?”

“YEP!” (she slides down off our bed)  “hmmm…. now where can I find some nem n nems?!” (as she’s looking through the stuff in our room)

Or the other day at the store…

“Tori, if you don’t start listening and sit down in the cart, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“MOM!(still standing up at this point, now yelling for all to hear) I DON’T WANT YOU TO LOSE YOUR MIND!!!!!!”

“Well then sit down!”

“I don’t want to sit down and I don’t want you to lose your mind ok!?”

Tori is the most hilarious kid.  When she’s not trying to get her way via screaming or tantrum throwing, she really is quite comical.  She’s got the best imagination.  She is very sweet and loving with Charli.  They are best buds and its so much fun watching them feed off each other. 

Most days (I guiltily admit) I take my job for granted.  My kids are so much fun, a helluva lot of work, but even more fun.  Tori really is a sweet kid, even if she screams and throws the mother of all fits at the most inopportune times occasionally.  She brightens my day, everyday with her hilarious banter and commentary on life.  I love it; all of it.  Even the parts where I’m up for the 10th time in the middle of the night with Charli, or I’m cleaning up a potty accident from Tori.  These things are all fairly temporary, and the pros still out way the cons…  I love being a mom!

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