Let me preface this whole entry by first saying I want to be in bed. Second, this weather can bite me. Now, on with it, right?

I don’t know whether or not I mentioned it – and frankly I’m too tired to go back and check – but I got the older kids’ hair cut on Tuesday morning in anticipation of having family photos taken this week sometime. It was Jaiden’s first trip to an actual salon (as opposed to Salon de Mama) and her haircut ended up being free as a result (yay). The best part, however, was that the chunk of hair she’d cut last summer had finally grown enough where it could be blended with the rest of her hair if we layered the front. It looked really cute – a lot better than it usually does – except for the fact that her bangs were feathered. The bangs were/are an easy fix until they grow back, and that will be 2-3 weeks like usual. Not a big deal. Jaylen’s hair looked SO cute! I always love it when he has a fresh haircut – he looks so handsome. So, yeah. Haircuts, check.

I’d planned on putting Jenna in a dress that was green with yellow and hot pink flowers, Jaiden was going to wear a jean skirt and a hot pink peasant-style top (from Old Navy), and Jaylen was going to wear jeans with a button-down green shirt (I’ve seen it at Wal-Mart). As for me, who knew. I couldn’t find anything on Wednesday and I couldn’t find Easter clothes that all coordinated that I was willing to pay for, so I toyed with the idea of just making something. (Ha! Yeah right! Who am I kidding?!) On Thursday I had to go down to Millington to enroll Jenna in Tricare Prime and I planned on just dragging my brood down to Memphis afterwards – we’d eat lunch somewhere, look for an outfit for me, and then get pictures done. On the way down to Millington I changed my mind and decided that we’d do pictures on Friday night in hopes that I could con my mom into coming with me to help out (and also to choose which pictures she wanted). We went to the Exchange to look for something I could wear (who knew that Spring Green just was NOT going to be found?) and I ended up finding outfits for the girls (still love the sound of that!) made from lavendar eyelet fabric (*SQUEAL*). Cool deal – the girls in lavendar and Jaylen and I in Robin’s Egg Blue! (We can rock the pastels despite the lack of pigment Jaylen and I have. LOL!)

A quick but funny story – you know it takes awhile to get three kids and yourself ready to go, especially when one is a newborn who likes to nurse every hour sometimes. I get us all ready and get all of the kids in their carseats, strapped in, and then I smell poop. I know it’s not Jenna because hers doesn’t smell, I seriously doubted it was Jaiden, so process of elimination tells us it’s Jaylen. Yes, of course it is. I have to pull the boy out (he sits in the middle of the girls), spread a blanket on my trunk lid, and change him on the back of the car. Ghetto! Then later on the kids and I are eating at Perkins and Jenna poops while I am nursing her. The nerve of that girl! She normally goes every 4-5 days and she had just gone a day or two before. I’d just settled Jaylen and Jaiden down (Jaylen was literally JUMPING on the seats of the booth we were sitting in!), so I opted to change Jenna in the booth instead of getting all of the kids and the diaper bag and going into the bathroom (my dad, a former health inspector was not too happy to hear that one!). THEN I ran out of wipes! Nice, right? Yeah.

The rest of this is not funny (not yet, anyway). I don’t know which quote to use: “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry ..” or “If you want to give God a good laugh, tell Him your plans ..”, so you just choose whichever suits you. This is where it starts to get hairy, though.

On Thursday night at dinner I ask my mom, “Mom, what are your plans for tomorrow night, after work?” as I flashed the shit-eating grin (pardon my French, but ‘crap-eating grin’ does it no justice). She doesn’t answer, but asks me why; as I am explaining myself my dad chimes in with, “Wrong! The weather’s supposed to be just like last Sunday tomorrow, you need to stay home.” I sigh, bummed that the weather would be awful, but hopeful that he was just being paranoid and would be wrong. Of course, if you’ve seen the news you’ll know that he wasn’t. We woke up to dark skies and hail in Memphis. Schools were closed (yes, I speak the truth) and those that were not already closed were in the process of closing. Odd, yes? That’s what I’m thinking, too. Mind you, this is around 8 a.m.

While I’m sitting in the living room watching the news and nursing Jenna, Jaylen comes in the room with a bit of a bloody nose. My guess is that he picked it so hard/enough that it bled; I’m sure it was nothing traumatic because he wasn’t crying. Not that big a deal. I hear him go in the kitchen and then I hear a crinkling noise – like a Pop Tart wrapper or something. I ask him several times what he’s into and get no answer, then I hollered at him and the crinkling stop as the pitter-patter of little feet started (he was running out of the kitchen in case you didn’t catch that). After I’ve finished nursing Jenna I begin making breakfast for the older kids and notice some white stuff on the floor and the dishwasher door wide open. I knew Jaylen did it, I was just wondering why on Earth he did it (“How weird!”, I thought). Somehow he managed to unwrap one and take a bite out of it, then – and this is where it gets really weird/funny – he puts the tab in the dishwasher’s detergent compartment (my mom found it later that night when she was doing dishes). I had to call Poison Control. It was not even 9 a.m. yet.

So that, to me, pretty much let me know how the rest of the day would go. I thought maybe I was wrong about that later because the weather here in our neck of the cotton field didn’t get rough (though it looked horrible out) and then it actually cleared up in the afternoon (for a bit, more storms came in overnight). NSA Millington was closed, and so was Katie’s workplace, so she and my mom came home early. Katie and I ended up going into town – she needed a haircut and I wanted to look for a blue shirt at Cato. I ended up finding several blue shirts and came home with one plus a pair of white capris (normal clothes – rock on!). Later that afternoon I was playing with Jenna and she smiled for me, then Katie and I got it on video. Sweet! Again, maybe I was wrong about the day being crappy?

Or maybe not. I was nursing Jenna at the kids’ normal bedtime so I let them stay up a little bit later. Hey, it’s Friday, why not?! When it got close to bedtime, though, I asked them to clean their room. They disappeared and it got pretty quiet. When I was done nursing Jenna I went to check on them and put them in bed and what should I find but the two of them playing in the bathroom. With chunks of hair on the floor. Long story short, my brother left his scissors out and Jaiden decided to play Beauty Shop. Remember those pretty layers she got on Tuesday? So much for those. I gasped and went into the living room, yelled at and spanked Jaiden, then went to have her clean the hair up. I cried, yes I did. While in the bathroom with Jaiden as she cleaned her hair up I notice that Jaylen has some bald spots, too. More crying! I do admit that I laughed at Jaylen because his did kinda look funny, but I was still pissed. Of course my mom lectures me and tells me that all kids do this, I did it several times, and she is laughing. “Payback!” she chuckles. Ha. Not funny.

Oh and um, pictures? Yeah. I’m still planning on doing them. What the hell. I’m slightly – okay, not so slightly – irritated with the stupid weather. Had we not had tornadic activity I would have been down in Memphis and would have already had their pictures taken. Bite me, weather. Just bite me.

[Tired of reading yet? Yeah, go ahead and take a potty break, grab something to eat, and come on back. I'll be waiting right here.]

This morning I set up appointments at both The Picture People and Sears. I’d planned on curling my hair and Jaiden’s hair, but it was pretty freakin’ blustery out, so it would have been a waste of time. Oh, and it was chilly too, which sucked a little because our outfits were Spring-like (capris, sleeveless shirts, etc.). Katie drove and, despite me forgetting the coupons and having to run back in the house, sign on to the internet, and print the bad boys out, we managed to get there early (we had a 1:30 p.m. appointment). When we got there Jenna nursed for a bit, then we took our pictures. We had a 2 p.m. appointment at Sears, so we go there and Jenna nurses again. We take more pictures and Jenna nurses both during and after the shoot (see a trend here?). I drop a nice load on some cute pictures, then we head out to eat lunch. The plan after lunch is to exchange some things from JC Penney, take pictures with the Easter Bunny, then swing back by Picture People on our way out. Did this happen? Sure. Some of it.

We scored some deals in JC Penney. I literally have no normal clothes other than the two shirts I bought at Wal-Mart two weeks ago and the three items my mom bought on Thursday (two of which need to be exchanged). With the exchange/return and the sale they had I got three new shirts for $4. Rock on.

Also, I wore some shoes that KILLED my feet from the time I put them on, so we hit up Payless for some flip flops. Ah, relief!

Next up, Easter Bunny. We didn’t get to do this because they were going on break from 5-6 p.m. We turn around to go up the escalators and there is this huge crowd of Memphis basketball players crowded around one chick. She looked like Jada Pinkett-Smith in the face, but it was most definitely not her. We were confused so we asked some dude on the escalator who the girl was and he told us it was Hoopz from the Flava Flav show, Flavor of Love. We don’t watch that BS, so we didn’t know. lol!

Anyway, the Picture People pictures turned out SO GREAT! I was seriously giddy. Seriously. Our family photo turned out AWESOME, so I bought the entire package! My second favorite is one of the three kids – it’s entirely too precious! I have all of the proofs from both Sears and The Picture People here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/echoleigh/sets/72057594102336990/

Honestly, I am VERY glad things ended up working out for the pictures, despite everything that happened. Usually I’m pretty spontaneous – we can see why actually planning to do things doesn’t work out for me! lol.

In other news .. my brother Tyrel passed his CDL test yesterday and ‘graduated’ (I kid, I kid!) from ‘truck-driving school’. He’s on his way to Atlanta tonight and will spend the next 2-4 weeks doing on the road training. Apparently the trainer told him that she hasn’t seen anyone drive as well as he does in quite awhile. Half the class failed (okay, so the class was only four people!).

Ryne hasn’t soloed yet, much to my mom’s relief. lol!

My mom gets to go back to Norfolk on travel here soon and I am insanely jealous. Stress on the ‘insane’ part. She refuses to pack me in her suitcase and check me with her baggage so I am going to go stand in the corner and pout until she agrees. Home misses me, Shanee said so.

And on that note .. I should go. It’s late and my bed is calling me.

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