By the title you might think I'm talking about my day today. The one where I am determined to clean the left over 50% of my house that wasn't scrubbed on Tuesday, where I still have to pack for this entire family for a week and be out of the house by 2.

Today sounds crazy, right??

I'm sure it will be.

But it can't be any crazier than yesterday!!!!

Oh my word.

Let's just start with a story from Wednesday night, because I promise you I saw an omen warning me Thursday would be bananas....

Oh yes, an omen.

In the form of a Cow.

Don't forget we live in the country. In fact, not thirty seconds ago a wild turkey just waddled past my window and up my driveway toward, well who knows where. Usually they stay in packs herds groups..... gaggles....?

This was just a lone Turkey.

Off on an adventure of his own.

:)

Anyway!

Wednesday night was a bit busy for me too. I had laundry ALL day, and then I give one piano lesson, after which I had to literally toss the children into the car and rush to dance. At which, I met my mom who graciously and lovingly took the two little ones to play over at Burger King whilst Stella got her groove on.

Stella needs me at dance, a little more lately... and I'm not quite sure. But it is a nightmare to take Stryker there. Oh my word. All he wants to do is rip apart the ginormous National's trophy from a couple years ago. He gets this gleam in his eye and I can just watch him picturing how to tear it apart, piece by piece all King Kong style.

Anyway, I try to avoid taking him to the studio as often as possible.

So. On with the story. After dance, I rush over to Burger King where Stella has a quick meal and then throw half of my kids back in the car, meet my mom at her house, get the other half, the rest of the laundry, race home, unload the car while Zach and I are switching responsibilities... He then jumps in the car with the two girls and heads back to dance while Stryker and I enjoy a quiet evening at home.

That part was awesome.

I got some work done.

Stryker enjoyed being the only child.

We looked at each other and said, "What do we need the rest of them for???"

Just kidding....

Anyway, the girls and Zach are practicing for the Father/Daughter dance that they will perform during our May recital and that's the need for all the rushing.

Zach had promised to bring home Dinner and a Movie for me after dance was over so we could have an impromptu, at home date night.

Well, that didn't happen thanks to two little girls who were exhausted from their day and also... had to pee.

So, I was sent back into the night while Zach got the beauties down for the night. By this time, it was going on 10PM and our country roads are black at night. Like. So. Black. If I pull out of my driveway, and look to the left and to the right, unless there is an actual car coming with headlights on I cannot see ANYTHING. It literally looks like just a black wall of nothing.

And I'm used to country roads by now. Not willingly used to them, but by necessity and experience. It was only a month living here before I hit my first deer.... Ran all the way over that sucker. And while I am in tears, upset over my brand new car that is now probably totaled, a car pulls up next to me to reassure me that the deer is dead, so I shouldn't worry!!!!!!!!

What??

Then my landlord asked me if we brought it home so we could eat it?????

Talk about Traumatized....

Where was I? This might be the longest blog ever. I'm not even to the Thursday part of it.....

Buckle in folks.

So on my way home, I slow down for the mandatory bunny rabbit, hopping along the road. And then there was a hedgehog.... or a porcupine.... or something super fat, and spiky. I don't know what it was, but Zach sounded skeptical when I mentioned the possibility of BOTH those animals.

Why? I have no idea... Are they rare or something? Not native to Nebraska? I have no idea.

But the REAL doozey came when I rounded the corner to the road in front of my house. I had just slowed down and pulled over abruptly because a Semi had come barreling around the corner at definitely unsafe speeds pulling a cattle car precariously behind it.

I resisted the urge to shout out my window "Slow down!!!" since it was long gone by that point, and when my eyes scanned the road, as they're prone to do on these country nights, I had to slam on my brakes because a COW stood grazing, in the middle of the road!!!!!!!!!!

Well, grazing might be the wrong term. Chewing the cud is probably more accurate.

And it eventually sauntered to the ditch for me so I could get around it, but what is a cow doing in the middle of the road??????

Definitely a first for me.

Plus, my first thought was that literally the maniac semi-truck driver dropped the poor girl with his haphazard driving skills and so the poor thing was lost and alone and more than likely terribly confused.

And then I saw the bell around her neck.

Yep, she was definitely somebodies pet.

Apparently, in the country, we keep cows for pets. She looked just like a story book cow too, like something right out of a Disney movie, but she was nearly the death of me! She had no business wandering around the middle of the road when she blends in with the background!!!

Anyway. That was my omen for yesterday....

Which heralded my bizarre and crazy day that was Thursday.

It started off like my normal craziness. We have Bible Study Thursday mornings, so we all have to be ready and beautiful and out the door by 9. Which usually turns into 9:25....

But, we run around crazy, and then I juggle all my kidlets into church, drop them off in their respective daycare rooms and then go enjoy two solid hours of great discussion, with fabulous women I just adore!!! I LOVE It. And if you live in Omaha, you need to do it next year with me because we are also doing Mops every other week.

I've never done Mops. But I've heard good things. And that part is only every other week, so Lindsay you can totally do it with me. :)

Anyway.

After Bible study, all of us ladies take our kiddos to lunch at a nearby grocery store because lunch is free for kids on Thursdays and I can feed my whole family for $3!!!!!!!!!

This is like the biggest deal in the world to me.

So after lunch, we had to pick up a few things at the store whilst we were there that I had forgotten the day before, like Apple Juice and Wipes. Both necessities!!! Both took us forever because it's impossible for me to chorale three children in a grocery store for some reason.

It doesn't help in the middle of the store they start yelling they have to go to potty either!!! This was AFTER they had already gone at home, at church twice, and then once during lunch already. Holy Cow, what are they drinking... It's only 12:30 in the afternoon...

Anyway, I make them hold it, find a checkout lane near the restrooms where I can keep an eye on the doors and send them in by themselves.

Now. The checkout I'm using is LITERALLY across the aisle from the bathroom, and it's a brand new store, so there is barely anybody there. Plus they are old enough to go on their own.

This is an epiphany for me!!!

And I can't tell you how thrilled I was that it worked out, I could keep Stryker in the cart, because lets face it, taking him into the bathroom is a NIGHTMARE. He's in to EVERYTHING. Especially toilets. The boy LOVES toilets and their disgusting water....

So we get all that figured out, make a $5 bill into quarters and head out to the car.

It is getting colder by this point. The morning started off nice and I had dressed my kids in summer clothes... Sun dresses for the girls, and shorts and a rolled up dress shirt for Stryker, just because he's the cutest little button I've ever seen. So we get to the car and Stella's like, I'm freezing mommy!! And I'm like, me too!!! What happened.

The sky is all dark and ominous and I'm like Oh no you don't!!! I have work to do!!!!!

Which is true, We are going out of town today and the car desperately needed to be cleaned out. So we go to the car vacuum place, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. We were just headed super far south for hair appointments and I happened to see it along the side of the road. It's probably run down and nobody uses it anymore. But hey, it worked for us.

At this point, Stryker had fallen asleep in his car seat and I'm vacuuming the crap out of my car, making it look super nice. I've got the girls car seats on the ground, so I can vacuum under them and my purse and everything and anything that was in the car is outside of it now so I don't accidentally suck something important up and the girls are playing taxi driver in the front seat.

And then.

It starts to rain.

The sky opens up. A crack of lightning bolts through the clouds. And God pronounces His judgement on Evil Mankind.

Ok.... None of that really happened.

But it DID start to rain.

Whilst I was vacuuming and all my stuff was laying out!!!!!!!!

And I can't stop.

Of course not, why would I????

I'm only halfway through my dollar and if I don't finish now, I'll never get the chance to finish later.

So I just decided to work through the rain. Yep. Stuff laying out an all. Plus, it's not like a downpour... It's somewhere between sprinkles and full-fledged rain. But it's freaking cold....

Then the girls announce that they have to go potty.

Again!!!!!!!!

I'm like YOU JUST WENT!!!!

And they're like, we know mommy but we really, really, really, really have to go!!!!

And so I say jokingly.... Well, you can either wait until I'm finished or go in the grass.

I'm joking.

I birthed prissy little girly girls that are absolutely APPALLED at the idea of peeing in public in the grass!!! Stella will not even get undressed in front of her dance class without some serious shielding from her mother. She is too modest. I promise you.

Plus. I was JOKING. They're 3 and 5. They should be able to get sarcasm by now, right???

:)

So, there I am in the middle of this loud vacuum, and the rest of the car goes quiet... I look up to find my two, precious little angels, in the middle of a field, undies dropped to their ankles and squatting like pros!!!!!!!!!!

I am mortified.

And in awe.

All at the same time!!!

Plus. They're NOT pros. And they completely disregarded the "Lean Back" rule.....

Needless to say, good thing they were wearing dresses that remained untouched and a trip to Gordmans was in order to replace the, uh, undergarments.

Of course, first they have to sit through the rest of the car clean out. And THEN they have to sit in their seats on the way to the store. All of which they hated.

But, I believe we call that Lesson Learned.

Even if it wasn't that Public Urination is a crime. They might have learned the value of a good Wall Sit.

Haha.

Ok, so now it's time to head over to our Hair Cuts, and the weather is getting even worse, and much colder. But Gordmans is close and it's a NECESSITY at this point.

We pop in their, grab some undies, a snack for my now famished children and a basket for the back of the car to keep our emergency whatever crap in it.

It was on sale for $9 and I thought that was a pretty good deal. :)

But then they have to PEE AGAIN!!!!!

In the store at least. And we needed to open our merchandise anyway. But good grief, this might be a SUPER long car trip to Kansas. It should take us 2.5 hours. But with all the potty breaks, we might be lucky to get there before midnight....

FINALLY we make it to our hair cut. After we walked outside into Hurricane like conditions and a serious temperature drop of like 20 degrees!!!

Don't mind my kids, there the ones dressed for the beach, while the rest of you stay huddled up in your winter parkas.....

At least we had fun at the hair cut. And Amy does such an AMAZING job!!! I adore her. And I have NEVER said that about a stylist before.

Ever.

Only Stryker and Stella got their hair cut. I'm not ready to cut Scarlett's curls off yet. But Stella I had no problem with!!! FINALLY, I cut some serious inches off that girl.

It's been SO long for SO long that I just couldn't take it anymore. It's a pain to brush, and honestly, she didn't have any volume or life.... I couldn't ever DO anything with it because it was just SO long.

I mean, it's still long. But it has some body to it now and some layers and it looks really, really, really good. I think anyway.

And Stryker... Oh Stryker.... I wanted to do a Full on Mohawk!!!! But.... I chickened out. So I had her give him Zach's style, which is like a Fohawk, but from front all the way down the back. And he looks ADORABLE!!!

I am SO in love with his cut.

Here's a picture.


Or two!!


And can I tell you he is just SO obsessed with those little deck shoes. He absolutely HAS to be wearing them at all times.

He's such a button!!!

Love him.

Finally we picked up Zach from work, headed home in the freezing rain and finally got to rest at home.

I never made it to the kids sale.... Which was depressing....

But I got through yesterday, which at times... I wasn't sure that I would!!! Lol. Just pray for bigger bladders today. :)