I finished my self portrait for my art class. I will let my kids fight over who wants me to hang it in their room when I get it back from the art show at school. I'm thinking they will let Maggie have it without a fight. Kelsey would die if I actually gave it to her since they share a room. Besides I think I have the perfect place for it. Smack dab in the middle of my liquor cabinet. That may help deter Erin and her friends from filling up the bottles with water and ice tea if I am staring at them the whole time.

Several of my neighbors took advantage of the good weather and put their Christmas lights up this weekend. I guess it made my husband feel guilty for not keeping up with the Joneses. He decided to actually take down the Halloween skeleton hanging on the front porch. I guess if this pattern continues it puts us on schedule to take down our Christmas lights in honor of Valentines day or maybe even St Patricks Day.

Shannon turns fourteen tomorrow, I can't believe how big my girls are all getting. She told us last night that she had an 8:00 am game at Soccer Park.(40 minutes away). She woke up at 8:20 and we realized that we had overslept. I decided to wait a little while before I called to apologize to the coach. I didn't want to call him on his cell while he was coaching and I didn't want to wake his wife up at home. I called around 10:00 to apologize. The coaches wife laughed and explained to me that the game was at 8:00 pm not am. Thank God we didn't drive all the way out there this morning. Shannon may not be alive to see her fourteenth birthday if we had.

Ryan has a bad habit of being kind of mean to his baby sister. On the way to school on Friday he was acting a little bit like a jerk. I warned him to knock it off. She absolutely idolizes her big brother, I can't even remember what it was that he did in the car but I remember yelling at him and telling him that next time he acts like that, I was going to smack him and let him wonder why I hit him, he could just sit there and try to figure out what he did wrong. On a side note, I am not a violent mom and he could probably count on one hand how many spankings that he has received in his lifetime. After I passed down my motherly words of wisdom , I laughed to myself and thought that maybe that little tidbit of advice most likely would not be found in any parenting books. Chapter One.... Hit your kids, don't tell them why,... See if they can figure out what they did wrong. Sounds like a future best seller to me!!