Random Randomness

1. Jack is asleep on the couch at 4pm, after also falling asleep at preschool at 1pm, and on the way home from preschool at 2pm. Just a wild guess, but I'm thinking he's coming down with something. Boo.


2. Dear Walmarts: Please inform your cashiers that the purpose of the reuseable shopping bags is to REDUCE, not increase, the use of plastic bags. I can understand how you would think this would be obvious, but clearly it is not. Bagging in plastic bag and THEN the reuseable bag defeats the purpose. And if I have more groceries than will fit in the reuseable bags I provide, DOUBLE plastic bagging is NOT required! Sincerely, Mrs. Obvious


3. These make me giddy. And I may just design my hypothetical dream kitchen around these. And my hypothetical dream living room around this, because black and white toile? With color embroidery accents? And peacocks? Sigh. But would it clash with this? Because I love it, too. And it's really quite practical because you couldn't find a stain on that if you tried, and hello, it's on SALE. If our trees ever start growing so much money that I can end world hunger, provide for all of the world's children, AND have some left over, I would love to spend a good number of dollars at that store. And by good, I mean at least 25,000.


4. Jack recently asked Dani if she would play "Hide and Go Think" with him.


5. Coconut Creme Coffeemate + Fernando's Coffee = Super Yum

Randomness

Luke loves his Mum-Mums!

Yet another, "Hey, Mom! Take a picture of this!"
Our mostly-packed living room/dining room
"Hey, Mom! You take a picture of me while I take a picture of you!"

"Hey, Mom! Take a picture of me! I'm a pirate Iron Man!"

Noah and his friend, Graham, a fellow big brother, at Baby Bible presentation

The only picture I have of all 4 kids at Luke's Baby Bible Presentation at church!

Daddy and Jack fell asleep watching cartoons!

There's really no explanation for this

Semi-annual mini-van clean-out

**I had already posted this when Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer set up a "What's in Your Car?" carnival**

1 Sonic bag containing misc trash

3 binders (Jared)

4 Bibles (1 Madeline, 1 Jared, 2 Melanie)

1 bag of Target returns

4 purses (3 Melanie, 1 Madeline)

1 pair unopened soccer socks (season ended this week)

5 various lipbalms

2 cassettes

1 coupon for 99cent Sonic onion rings

1 Mother's Day card from Madeline

286 papers from Bible class

3 backpacks (ALL Jack)

1 First Aid kit

1 Doodle Pirate (unopened)

4 chewed lollipop sticks

1/2 bottle of water

1 Chewbacca (Star Wars) sports bottle

1 empty Kool-Aid koolers bottle

1 granola bar wrapper

6 EMPTY Walmart sacks (in various locations)

2 Sonic tater tot boxes (empty)

1 Wendy's nugget box (empty)

various activity/coloring/reading books

42 Goldfish (in various states of crush-ed-ness)

37 pieces of popcorn from Target

2 lunchboxes (fortunately empty--Jack)

1 pair flip-flops (Melanie)

1 Superman cape (Jack)

1 shoe (Noah)

4 socks (none matching--Jack and Noah)

1 umbrella

3 cars

1 broken flashlight

2 unopened trial size tubes of toothpaste

2 bouncy balls

3 NEW sticky spots on floorboards

APPROXIMATELY 742,000,000 crumbs/paper particles/crushed leaves

Yep, everything is completely under control. If only we had just ONE MORE kid...

(Please send help now. Or a masseuse. Or a maid. Really, it's up to you.)

"Gonna put you in a trance with a funky song"

It's possible I have sunk to a new low. But OH the memories!

NKOTB is "Hangin' Tough" again!

I've mentioned before that I once had dreams of being Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg and this morning, the Today Show reminded me why :-) Did anyone else catch this?

Who knew those moves (not to mention songs!) were (still are) so incredibly cheesy??!! Ok, we all probably knew, even back then, but, OH, the cuteness!

Here they are "back in the day":

Were inside out overalls with the top hanging down REALLY ever cool? I guess that (partially) explains my lack of popularity in middle school..and here they are all grown up today...

Please let this baby be born soon so I have something worthwhile to blog about!!

Tagged

Here's how this one works...

1. The rules are posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and ask them to read your blog.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

1. Majoring in Music Education at WKU
2. being an HFC (Hilltoppers for Christ)
3. living at home
4. not dating Jared (we were "just friends")
5. preparing to spend the summer in Honduras and transfer to Harding in the fall

Five things on my to do list for today:

1. Take Jack to school (in 20 minutes!)
2. Go to the grocery (unless I'm okay with running out of toilet paper today)
3. Take a shower
4. Go to Angie's for lunch
5. Do laundry (so the kids will have school clothes for the rest of the week!)
   

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Buy Jared a farm and a couple of fast cars
2. Get a bigger house (not ridiculous, but with more bedrooms and a big dining room)
3. Buy my parents and in-laws their dream homes
4. Finish funding college and retirement for all of our family (including future nieces and nephews)
5. Give lots of money to Baxter to do the things Mom mentioned
6. Give lots of money to Barquisimeto, Venezuela, church, Grandview church(Hispanic church in Nashville), and Woodbine church (inner city Nashville)
7. Adopt a bunch more children, and hire people to clean house, cook, etc so I could just be the wife/mom (and blog)! (That sounds good even if we didn't add any more children!)
8. Personal masseuse!! (Good idea, Mom! Probably at the top of my list too!)

Three of my bad habits: (I'm glad this was limited to 3!)

1. Being late
2. Yelling (in anger/frustration, when I'm excited, when I'm too lazy to walk to the next room to communicate)
3. Biting my fingernails (and passing that on to my daughter! Argh!!)

Five places I have lived:

1. Searcy, AR (Tina Circle, Stephens dorm)
2. Springdale, AR, & Farmington, AR
3. Bowling Green, KY (Leslie Ave, Greenhill Rd, MacLean and Rhodes-Harlin dorms)
4. Hendersonville, TN (Wilmington Ct)
5. Nashville, TN (Elam dorm, Oakley Dr)

Five jobs I have had:

1. Chopsticks (Greenwood Mall)
2. McCloud Claims Service (secretary)
3. various marching bands (brass/marching/field commander instructor)
4. Catalog Music (customer service)
5. Foundation Christian Academy (Spanish teacher)

Five People I Want to Know More About:

1. The Amy B's (Berry & Bowman)
2. SGD (you don't have a blog but you can email/comment or START A BLOG)
3. Hannah R
4. Maggie Jean
5. The Sarah K's (White and Owens)

Email tag

My friend, Amy in BG, sent this to me today, so I'm posting it here. I also got my first TAG--a double one--from Tiffany and Teresa (same tag), so I'll do that soon. But it requires more thought, so I'm throwing this one out there first. Not really a tag, but it looked fun!

Welcome to the 2008 edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to your friends including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have
known!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:15-ish to help kids get ready for school
2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds!
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Veggie Tales: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything
4. What is your favorite TV show? Lost, The Office, Scrubs, House
5. What did you have for breakfast? Cheerios with "gold" (aka honey)--and I used Jared's whole milk...oh yes I did.
6. What is your middle name? Dawn
7. What food do you dislike? Anything I have to cook :-)
8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Watermark "A Grateful People"
9. What kind of car do you drive? Honda Odyssey
10. Favorite sandwich? Tuna from Panera or Subway (w/lettuce, tomato and LOTS of black pepper)
11. What characteristic do you despise? meanness (I have a hard time describing this exactly, Jared makes fun of me for calling lots of things "mean"...I know it when I see/hear/feel it)
12. Favorite item of clothing? currently, Bella Band; normally, Old Navy jeans
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? nowhere at the moment :-) but snorkeling in Belize is at the top of my to-do list SOMEDAY
14. Favorite brand of clothing? SALE! Banana Republic if I had the time or money (or, you know, a waist)!
15. Where would you retire to? That's too far away to even think about!
16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? My last one--the big 3-0! Jared surprised me with a party, even in the middle of his busy season! And my mom passed down my grandmother's beautiful ring to me, so that made it extra special!
17. Favorite sport to watch? Titans football
18. What is the furthest place this email will go? Honduras to Mom (since Dad doesn't "do blogs")
19. Person you expect to send it back first? No idea
20. When is your birthday? March 28
22. Are you a morning person or a night person? Definitely a night person :-)
23. What is your shoe size? 8 normally, 8 1/2 when pregnant
24. Pets? 3, if you count the kids :-) We have lots of "pet" caterpillars, ants, and worms, but they stay outside and fend for themselves.
25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? Hopefully I will in about 5 more weeks! And hopefully he will have a name by then.
26. What did you want to be when you were little? teacher, mommy, musician, Mrs. Donny Wahlberg (New Kids on the Block)
27. How are you today? as my dad would say, "Old, fat and tired." 2 of those I actually am, one I just feel.
28. What is your favorite candy? Jr Mints, but I'd take a cookie (esp Snickerdoodle) over candy
29. What is your favorite flower? tulip
30. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? May 28/June 1--whatever day this baby is born!!! (And our anniversary on May 29, but it's going to be a pretty unromantic one)
32. What is your full name? Melanie Dawn Smalling
31. What are you listening to right now? Peace and quiet. Jack is watching Blue's Clues but if I pretend, I can hear quiet.
34. What was the last thing you ate? ice (from Sonic, from one of 2 bags of it in my freezer)
35. Do you wish on stars? no
36. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? burnt sienna
38. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my mama called me from Honduras!
39. Favorite soft drink? cherry Coke
40. Favorite restaurant? Rafferty's
41. Hair color? brownish
42. What was your favorite toy as a child? Lisa, a doll my mom made for me
43. Summer or winter? Summer
44. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
45. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
46. Coffee or tea? both!!!
47. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes!
48. When was the last time you cried? Yesterday when I found that instead of getting ONE shirt to wear, Jack had pulled out ALL of the clothes out of ALL of his and Noah's dresser.
49. What is under your bed? 2 plastic containers of clothes I can't wear right now
50. What did you do last night? Went to Karyn Henley parenting seminar at our church
51. What are you afraid of? Storms, tornadoes, someone in front of me throwing a cigarette out their car window and it going under my car and making it blow up, ...
52. Salty or sweet? both, together
53. How many keys on your key ring? 2
54. How many years at your current job? 8 1/2 (mom)
55. Favorite day of the week? Tuesday (Jack goes to Mother's Day Out!)
56. How many towns have you lived in? 6 (but one of those 3 different times)
57. Do you make friends easily? More and more, as I realize that people I thought were more acquaintances are really friends.
58. How many people will you send this to? ??? Whoever reads this blog???
59. How many will respond? maybe 4