Why oh why did I ever give in and give Dawson a pacifier?! I hate myself right now. He has never wanted to comfort nurse, he would scream when the milk was there and he was through filing his tummy. So, I gave in and now I have a burned counter top. I know that makes no sense. I put the pacis on to boil and walked away without setting the timer. :( Half way into O Brother Where Art Thou, I hear something sizzling and ran into the kitchen to find the pacis burned to the bottom of the pot and smoking, I reacted without thinking and put the pot onto the Laminate countertop which now has an brown ring burned into it! :( Josh ran out to get a new one because if D wakes up and wants one in the middle of the night (which happens about 3 nights a week), I am screwed without it. Again, I hate myself right now! :(

I have gone craft crazy. :p I am making picture frames out of CD cases to give family today. Yesterday I made birdfeeders out of large pinecones, peanut butter and birseed. Megan helped me with that one. I am gonna let Megan decorate the CD cases with stickers as soon as I get some. I still need to come up with something for her to give my parents and J's parents and I'm running out of time. eek! My big brother, John, arrived from Michigan late last night..he came after all!!! YAY!!! I think we are gonna go to the craft store this afternoon to pick up the last few things I need for the picture frames and some beads to make pins out of. I'm attempting a little project to make some money on the side, more about that later if I'm successful. :)

Josh asked me if it was ok to go see the Rams play the Panthers tomorrow in Charlotte. (his bossman is gonna pay) I told him it was, but I really hope he will decide on his own to stay home. Megan's gift isn't finished, and I need time to bake cookies and prepare other things. It would really be nice if he were around to help me. He sees the people he works with all the time!

Christmas eve, I am taking cookies to dinner at my IL's house. Christmas day we are going back there for a bit get together and I'm taking Pinapple casserole, mashed potatoes and a cake if I can get that much done. Thursday, we are having the get together at my parents home because my sisters family isn't driving down until the day after Christmas.

I hope that all of you are having a wonderful holiday and that your time together as a family is glorious. I am hoping the same for us. :)

I found this petition...
All I can say is SCARY! If anyone came within 20 yards of me with that needle, their own health would be in grave danger!

Well, I did a little searching around today. I looked at both of our local community colleges to see what tech programs were available. At this point, Josh could tell me he was going to go for his CDL and I wouldn't care. I found this. I called him immediatly...it is SO right up his alley. He is gonna find out what types of jobs are available to students that come out of this program, what they make, where they are hired, hiring percentages, etc... Its kinda pricey, but most of the classes are held at night so he will be able to work during the day and I KNOW we are elligable for grant money! I'm excited for him to find out more. It feels like now is do or die time. 30 is staring us strait in the face and it feels like we need to have our ducks in a row, and SOON! Factory workers make more than we are right now!! (Never thought I would say that)

I lucked up at the food salvage this afternoon. I noticed some Vanilla Enriched Rice Dream on the shelf for $1.35 a carton. I thought that was a good deal. I grabbed 4 and really wanted all 7, but didn't think I could afford to buy them all today. I was just gonna hope the others would last until next week. When I got up to the counter to pay, she said "I'll give these to you for $0.50 each." I went back and got the rest. Its not even near out of date. Its good til the end of Feb! Woo Hoo!! I also got a box of Tofutti Cuties for $1.50. Every little bit helps. The people that own and run that store are so nice and helpful. Every week they do a $50 drawing/giveaway and they donate stuff to the needy. That place has saved me SO much money.

I got Megan asleep and in the bed before 8 tonight. Poor thing was spent. Daddy missed seeing his little girl tonight, but if I had to listen to one more whine, I would have lost my mind. Even Dawson went to sleep fairly early and easy tonight for a change. I guess I deserve a good night every now and then. :)

It seems that my big brother has gotten in touch with his "friend" and should be on his way down here tomorrow. I hope he will come!!!

I thought my fruit quiz might add a little something to my page...hope it shows up, I don't have the best luck adding HTML code. :/

UGH! Another rotten night last night. Josh got busy sorting through some old memory type stuff and boxing it up and before we knew it, it was LATE! 10:00pm. So, my daddy was there and we started reading books and Megan wasn't calming down so he put her in the car where she apparently screamed the whole time. She came home and fell asleep in my arms. It was almost 11. When J and I finally got time to talk, he was really rattled. We got to talk about some serious stuff going on in his head. He feels pretty worthless and it makes me sad. :( He sees the same bad stuff starting to happen at his new job that was going on at Valley Chev and that bothers him. He isn't making any $ which bothers him more. He is realizing he will be 26 in a few months and his life is just falling apart. :( I hate to see my man feel like that. :(
This morning, Megan woke up cranky and wanted her daddy who was on his way out the door to work. His truck wouldn't start so he took my truck to get the jumper cables from his mom. She went looking for him and when she couldn't find him, she unlocked the back door (front door has a deadlock but the back door doesn't) and ran outside. Luckily I had gotten up right then to get clothes for Dawson and noticed that I didn't hear her in the house and went to find the back door open and her running back into the garage from the driveway. We live right off a busy road and people who don't live on my street use it as a shortcut and fly past our house all the time. Scary!

I just finished chatting with my sister. Apparently my brother is convinced that some woman in his internet life is more important than all of us and since he hasn't heard from her in a few days (she had surgery and didn't even give him her number in the hospital) he might need to back out on his trip down here to see us so he can go look for her. This woman doesn't sound like someone I would get along with period. She has 2 kids that are raised by hired help while she is out building her carreers. (yes, there are more than 1). She sounds like she has some great talents, but come on, she doesn't even want to meet him yet! She actually drove 2 hours to scope him out at church one day and didn't say anything to him! If I had done that, I wouldn't have told the guy...creepy if you ask me. I hope he comes to visit us. My mom will be very hurt if he chooses her over us for the holidays. :(

Our other brother has decided to move out on his own. (he turned 23 yesterday) The problem with that is 1) his only job is delivering pizzas and 2)he has never managed his own money, bought his own food, etc... He just bought a new vehicle and has never lived on his own. I give it 90 days. I hope for my parents sake it works out, but I'm not holding my breath.

My son is a freaking night owl apparently. (He gets it from me and everyone on my side of the family.) He was up until 12:30 last night screaming his head off because he was tired but not wanting to give in to sleep. J's thinking is to lay him down and let him cry...ya, that'll put him to sleep. (roll eyes). Megan never put a strain on our relationship. Dawson has done nothing but. We have fought more in the past 3 months of his life than we ever have in 8 years of dating/marriage previously. I don't know what to do. I know that much of our fighting stems from our finacial situation on top of getting adjusted to having a new baby around.

We don't have a Christmas Tree and probably won't cause we don't have the $ to get one. I thought I would be fine with it, but now I can't seem to be ok with Christmas morning pictures without a tree in them. Josh wants one so, he'll probably make me spend the money that should be spent on something else to get the tree. My parents and his parents have one.

My infection is better. I think it must have just been a plugged duct problem that I was able to head off before it became an infection. I never started a fever or red streaking thankfully. This is the 3rd one since my milk came in for Dawson. (My first one started the very day my milk came in). I never got more than a plugged duct that hurt with Megan, nothing ever made me feel sick. Of course, she nursed all the time (still does if I let her) and Dawson only wants milk when hes hungry. Any other time, it better not get near him. I still offer it to him first, but 9 out of 10 times that just makes him mad. He won't be a comfort nurser.

I feel another breast infection coming on. :( Megan apparently didn't nurse much last night and I didn't realize it. Dawson woke up and nursed a little on the Megan's nighttime side and then we left for the morning and he nursed a bunch while we were out on the other side because ofthe way he sat in the sling. Now, I'm feeling achey and sickly and that side is very sore. I wish I had someone here to take care of the kiddos so I could just rest. I'm afraid to go lay down in the bedroom cause sure as I do, Dawson will wake up (hes on the couch and Megan is on the love seat. I'll just rest here and get takeout for dinner I think

Josh has the table about 1/2 way done and it looks great despite being a little smaller than I had in mind. Oh well, he can make another one when they get bigger. Its enough to run a small train track on or build with blocks, so its usable!

Megans verbal skills are improving so much now that shes closer to 2. I was really worried there for awhile as I watched the kids around her using sentances at a year and 1/2 and Megan was only saying "mama", "baby" and other simple words over and over. Those are still her most used words, but she has started putting words together and a lot of her babble is starting to sound like something. Tonight, MIL or "nana" to Megan, took her riding around to look at lights. I stayed home with Dawson. Terri told me she said "more lights" when she couldn't see anymore and said "blue lights" when she saw blue. She has started telling me when she has to potty sometimes. I am trying to accomidate her when we are out and about, but its really hard with an infant in tow when I have no where to put him down. She ran out of the room a few nights ago yelling "I gotta go!!" (go potty) :D