A long overdue update.

Well, it has been quite awhile since I wrote last. And, I guess, a lot has hap­pened that has kept me busy.

Let’s start youngest to oldest.

Riley is get­ting pret­ty big. He can stand him­self up on things. He crawls VERY fast. The room­ba is his friend. He will sneak over there and turn it on when­ev­er he can.

He is also get­ting in a lot of his teeth. He also gives this great big cheesy grin. Mat­ter of fact, it is the same cheesy grin that Dominic and Mikay­la had when they were younger. The one where they scrunch up their whole face and all you see is a big toothy grin. I love it. I could stare at that face the rest of my life and be content.

He also loves the com­put­er even more now. He will play pogo with grand­ma or Amy, or watch me play WoW.

He still takes his naps with me in the after­noon when Amy sneaks him in bed with me. I nev­er know he is there until he wakes me up. If Amy gets him before I wake up, then they come in around 2:30 and wake me up. There is noth­ing bet­ter than hav­ing your baby boy sit­ting next to you on the bed, gen­tly pat­ting your back to wake you up and going “da da da da”

Mikay­la is just like her moth­er. All atti­tude. But cute atti­tude. And she is still my baby girl and still a lit­tle princess.

She is still in dance. Unfor­tu­nate­ly we don’t know for how long she will be able to stay in dance. She is cur­rent­ly in Pre-Comp. But after that she would go into a com­pe­ti­tion line. Trou­ble is, it is EXPENSIVE! So far this year I think comp line has paid about $400 in dues, and that is just since Sep­tem­ber! They still have more to go!

Dominic is doing pret­ty well in school. He still will have his moments where he likes to screw around and not pay atten­tion, but we are work­ing on those. He and I have night­ly talks. Some­times we talk about what­ev­er he wants to talk about and some­times we talk about what I want to talk about and some­times it is to talk about seri­ous mat­ters (like behaving).

Court­ney is doing great in school. Smart as ever, still in the Tal­ent­ed and Gift­ed Pro­gram at school. She does have this knack for turn­ing in home­work late. So we are work­ing on that one.

My mom is doing pret­ty well. She is known around here is the bed­die-time grand­ma. It is her job to put Riley to sleep at night. I think the record is 2 sec­onds. She lit­er­al­ly picked him up, he rolled over to look at her and out he went. He seems to sleep bet­ter at night if grams puts him to bed. Some­times though she has to wear him out by play­ing pogo with him or watch some TV. It is there spe­cial bond­ing time together.

Amy is busy as ever. It is Girl Scout cook­ie sea­son and being the Ser­vice Unit Cook­ie Coor­di­na­tor for the entire Cen­ten­ni­al Ser­vice Unit (60 troops this year). It is her job to make sure every­one gets their troops order in on time, train the “cook­ie moms”, and orga­nize all the paper­work. I helped her out this year by putting togeth­er a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion for her to use, so she could make sure that all the trainees (in three dif­fer­ent train­ing ses­sions) got the same information.

I am doing so-so. Work­ing third shift does take its toll. I am always tired. I feel like I nev­er get any­thing accom­plished at home. I still am on the Board at our coop­er­a­tive. And still the Communications/Marketing Com­mit­tee Chair­per­son and Com­mit­tee Rela­tions Advi­sor. Not easy work, I am con­stant­ly busy.

I have been going back and forth with the deci­sion if I want to run to be on the board again this Feb­ru­ary, or not. And if I want to stay involved in my com­mit­tee or not.

• The pro is that I get a say in what hap­pens where I live, I get to be a part of some­thing grand (in its begin­nings too!). 
• The con is that it takes up so much of my time, some of my neigh­bor­hood friend­ships have dete­ri­o­rat­ed, I get frus­trat­ed with the in fight­ing and drama.

So I try to fig­ure out if it is real­ly worth it. I know that there is no one else who could do the jobs I do. No one is as orga­nized as a sec­re­tary as I am. No one has the skills (let alone the design pro­grams) to do the cre­ative work that I do to try and make this park more professional.

It is also hard being in the ‘pub­lic eye’, since I am such a pri­vate person.

I hate not hav­ing free time and being lazy, like I used to be. Every wak­ing moment is filled with things to do.

But any­ways. Enough of that.

Not sure what else I should write. I want to write more, but find­ing the time is exhaust­ing. I have so many things I want to do. Lose weight, eat right, write more, home projects, office projects. The list goes on and on and on.

In my iPod:

• Aquar­ius — 25th Annvier­sary Edition
• Take Me Out - Franz Ferdidnand
• Vaca­tion — Con­nie Francis
• Eldest — Audio­book (Eragon Book 2)
• Hurt — Christi­na Aquilera