What is it about 3 am?

Every night-or morning actually-around 3 am I wake up...wide awake. It's so annoying! So here I am and I can tell I won't be sleeping again any time soon so I thought I would share today-it was pretty fun!

Note to self-NEVER EAT PORK AGAIN. We went out to eat with just Rachel tonight and ate at one of the little local restaurants. I must have some kind of weird psychological thing going on about the local restaurants because it never fails to make me sick after eating at them. Everyone else around here raves about how great they are but I eat there and YUCK....the places look dirty to me and the food is not healthy, mostly fried. The only thing that sounds any good is the barbeque and I requested chicken but they only had pork so I thought, what the h, try it again...did and now I just finished vomiting and I have hives...so I guess I am allergic?

Rachel did her normal "dance around the restaurant, singing to people" karaoke style thing again. Luckily everyone thought she was cute. Never in a million years would I have let the other kids do that, they were all trapped in high chairs at this age still but Rachel, she gets to socialize. Also, the screaming that would have followed if I demanded that she sit still the whole time would have forced one of us to leave so I let her dance and sing. The two boys at the table next to us were laughing so hard at her "chicken nugget dance" (special number where you say chicken nugget over and over, louder and louder and dance in time to the words) so when she realized that they were watching her and laughing at HER she did a special "number" around their table which made them and their mother laugh harder and Rachel decided to try out a few more people. Every one else was elderly and very nice so they all enjoyed her. Randy said he totally forgot we can't eat out anymore! LOL! We had to stop her and bring her back over to our table when she found the entrance to the kitchen and excitedly exclaimed "I GO COOK". We gave her a pen and paper to divert her attention and she then drew "ceekles" (circles) for everyone.

Next we went to the home store and bought some paint stripper and a little heater for our room (which will be going in the apartment above the garage) because Randy misunderstood when they put in our new heating and air conditioner he thought we had BACK UP gas heat for when the weather reached a certain temperature and thought we had plenty of time to call the gas company to have them come turn on the gas and inspect the lines....well, no, dear, that almost 14,000 $$$$ apparently didn't cover the extra system because when we turn both systems on HEAT it blows cold air. It is around 50 degrees in our house right now and believe it or not, I think it's warmer OUTSIDE. The gas company better come out Monday when the kids get back.

Randy's dad is doing so much better. We took our bubbly little actress/singer/drama queen over to their house after the store and she put on an even better show for them. They loved it and so did she (and us, admittedly). Randy's brother showed up and Rachel loves "Uncle Games(James)" so she drew his hand and ceecles for him as well.

Oh! And I almost forgot! Rachel and Elizabeth and I went to my nephew's fourth birthday party this morning at a place called The Fun Factory. It has the largest inflatable slides I have ever seen! I walked in and heard this woman that sounded like my mother screaming from inside one of the slides and guess what? It was my mother sliding down!!! She is in her sixties!!! Then I saw my dad jumping around on one! And my brother!! Where are the kids? Oh yeah, there they are! So of course I rush to take off my shoes and Rachel's and Liz and I scramble up to join them!!! It was a blast! Dad and I even raced down once! We'll have to go back and do it for Rachel's birthday next year so I can get pictures! I would love to see Randy on one of those although I doubt it would happen!

Anna Grace (my niece) is so sweet! She smiles constantly and I think she really knows who I am. She is now 9 months old already!!! I am the only woman in her life with long and blonde hair. My mom, Jill and Jill's mom all have short dark or gray hair so she stares at my hair a lot. So I flip it for her and she grabs handfuls and chuckles like crazy..and I eat her neck and she laughs so hard. Today I was given permission to feed her a little chocolate cake so now I am certain I am one of her top ten favorite people!

Well, back to bed to hopefully sleep this time. NO MORE PORK!

One more thing-Phoebe is due to have puppies this week although she is not very large at all. I hope she knows what to do. I keep putting a sheepskin blankie in her dogloo but she pulls it out and dumps it on the ground.