No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...
Sorry I've been away for so long. There's just too much going on!

Let's see, let me try to re-cap what's been happening. Overall, had a good time with my parents on my birthday weekend (however, my 3-year-old son came down with a cough and fever while they were here). Other than that, though, everything went OK.

Emily finished up her testing for the gifted program, and we should be getting the results of the testing in the mail within the next couple of weeks.

We're finally going to be going in on Thursday to pre-qualify for a home loan! Woohoo! :) *crossing fingers that we can pre-qualify for enough to make buying our own home a reality*

And tomorrow, the "Jem" 4-disc DVD set comes out (as well as reissues and new singles box sets for Depeche Mode).

Have been very busy getting ready to launch the newest specialty show on The AeschTunes Top 40... "AeschDance." This new show will air on Fridays, and will feature the best dance music from over the past 30+ years. The news show launches this Friday (two airings: 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST and 11 p.m. EST/8 p.m. PST).

Need to go, though... have to start working on dinner.

What a week!
Oh, man... this was a crazy week (and overall hasn't been a very good week for me)! It was almost as if everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. *sigh*

My 6-year-old went back to school on Tuesday, and had her first day of testing for the gifted program yesterday (they'll do a second day of testing sometime next week).

My 3-year-old had some gunk coming out of his eye yesterday. I've been cleaning his eye, and it seems to have gotten a lot better. But now I think I'm coming down with the cold my 6-year-old's been dealing with. :P

My parents are supposed to be coming today to spend a couple of days with us (my birthday is on Sunday, and they wanted to spend a couple of days with us to help us celebrate). This year, I turn 29. Wow... 29. Only about one more year until I hit 30. Ten years ago, when I was turning 19, my 30th birthday seemed to be a long way off. But now, it's so close, it's almost scary. I guess I can look at the bright side and realize I have one more year of being in my 20's.

I'd better wrap this up... it's almost time to take my 6-year-old to her bus stop so she can catch the bus to school.

Tired today... :P
My 3-year-old woke me up at 1 a.m. After cuddling with him for a couple of minutes, I sent him back to his bed. However, I never could truly fall back asleep. :P

My 6-year-old seemed like she was trying to find ways to stay home from school. While she still has a cold, and had a slight temperature, she wasn't pale anymore and she had an appetite (however, she refused to eat the bowl of Kix I gave her, claiming she didn't like it; I made her eat a bowl of Cheerios instead, because I wanted her to have something in her stomach before going to school).

Between being tired and feeling a little frustrated by my 6-year-old, my patience has been worn rather thin... :P

Not how I expected today to go...
Well, I'm having to keep my 6-year-old home from school today. She's been having some cold symtpoms (cough and sore throat), but she woke up this morning with a slightly elevated temperature and looked pale; she also complained about not being hungry. So I'm keeping her home today to rest, hydrate, and hopefully get the fever gone so she can go back to school tomorrow.

I'm a proud mom... :)
My 6-year-old daughter brought her Winter trimester report card home today, and it was a good report card. For the most part, the subject area grading didn't change much (the only real change came in her ability to recognize sight words in her reading; it went from "Meets Expectations" to "Exceeds Expectations").

Her teacher also gave my daughter same very good comments at the back of the report card. My 6-year-old is growing up... *happy tears*

WE GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Our tax refund arrived in the mail today! *happy dance* Some more money for the home buying fund. :)

I forgot to mention that Dan had his performance review at work the other day. He didn't get a raise this time, but he's getting a sizable one-time bonus. That'll be on the paycheck he gets on March 26... more money for the home buying fund! :)

Everything seems to be in place for us to go pre-qualify for a home loan on April 1... :)

I forgot to mention earlier that tomorrow, my 6-year-old brings home her next report card from school. For the kindergarteners, they don't give out letter grades... they are rated as "Meets Expectations," "Exceeds Expectations," or "Below Expectations." I'm pretty confident about how she'll rank in those categories in various areas, but I'm really curious as to the comments her teacher will leave at the end of the report card.

Frustration...
My 3-year-old has decided that he wants to test us to see where his limits are, and he's been using his meals and his naps to do that. After two days of refusing naps, he finally took one yesterday (but when he woke up, he was pretty grumpy). :P

But it's been a lot worse with his meals. It came to a head last night when he absolutely refused to eat his dinner. Dan made him sit at the table for two hours, until our 3-year-old had eaten a bit of his meal. This morning at breakfast, he started acting a little better about his meal. I hope he will continue improving... I've been getting a little worried because of this (since he's testing his limits and trying to control what's happening, he's not eating as much as he used to).

I referenced that my 6-year-old's school went into lockdown the other day, and that I didn't know what had happened in regards to the car and the bomb. From what I've since heard, it appears Enumclaw police didn't find a bomb, and they're now investigating the caller.

Ugh... I'm feeling extremely worn out and tired... :P Hopefully the caffeine from the Mountain Dew I'm drinking will kick in soon...

Forgot to mention...
I forgot to mention in my entry this morning that my 6-year-old's school had to be put under "lockdown" yesterday. Apparently, a driver on Highway 410 received a call that there was a bomb in their car. The driver pulled over and called Enumclaw Police. As a precaution, they put the nearby schools (including my daughter's) under lockdown. I don't know how it ended, but I'm assuming they didn't find anything.

This is the second time this year her school was put under lockdown. The first time was back in October, when a "person of interest" for Enumclaw police was roaming the woods around Enumclaw Middle School; they put the schools under lockdown as a precaution.

Wow... I'm posting two days in a row!
Maybe this should make Ripley's Believe It Or Not? *laugh*

I forgot to mention in my entry yesterday that we went out to Target on Friday and bought a new coffee table (the kind you put together yourself), because they were having a good sale on it, and our coffee table really needs to be replaced. The only problem we have now, though, is that we can't put the new one together until we find a way to get the old one to the dump (our old one is in such bad shape, it needs to be thrown away... it's not in good enough shape to give to anybody). In fact, we got the old coffee table used from someone at our church, and we've had it about 6 1/2 years. However, the style of this coffee table isn't very friendly for families with young children (and the fact that we had to move it several times since we got it didn't help, either; when we moved into this apartment, the shelf at the bottom of it broke, and it isn't the most stable of tables since that happened).

Be glad I didn't post earlier this morning, because I haven't had a very good morning; I've had some time to calm down. My 3-year-old has been fighting eating the past few days (only eating well at one meal, then fighting eating the rest of his meals), and he was resisting his cereal this morning. While this was going on, my nephew was dropped off and threw a temper tantrum when his mother left. Hopefully my day will go better...

I'm a little frustrated with Tripod's Blog services. I've been having quite a few problems logging in to the Blog menu to post changes. I'm starting to consider maybe finding Blog services elsewhere, then at the new Blog, have a link back here. I haven't made up my mind about that yet, though. It's just something I'm pondering.

But I need to get going, though. It's going to be time to take my 6-year-old to her bus stop soon.

I'm still alive...
Again, it's taken me a week to post! :P

We got a letter from the IRS on Friday, saying that when we did our tax forms, we forgot to take out the advance child tax credit that we got last summer. Oops. *embarrassed* Ah well. While the tax refund won't be as big as we were initially anticipating, it'll still be a pretty good amount of money to go to the house fund. So we're still waiting for our check from Uncle Sam... maybe soon...

Friday afternoon, my kids told me what they wanted to be when they grow up. My 6-year-old daughter wants to be a doctor, and my 3-year-old son wants to be a baseball player. We'll see how long those ambitions last. :)

Saturday night was pretty good when it came to our internet radio station and personal chart website. Our website received its 1,000th hit that night, and we also set a record on Saturday for the most hits to the site in one day (17; the previous record was 14, which was set last Monday). Also, our "sneak preview" chart broadcast got its highest listener total ever since the show started back in early February. :)

I've got my nephew over again. My brother-in-law has got some employment with the Army National Guard, which will last for about a year. While the pay may not be as good as what he'd get if he had a "regular" job, he says it beats what he'd get if he were collecting unemployment. I really hope that either he or his wife can get some kind of full-time employment with benefits soon. They've been in the situation they're in for about a year-and-a-half. :(

Well, I think that's all for now. I'll try to post again this week if I can find some time (been pretty busy with cleaning the apartment up and maintaining the personal chart website and the internet radio station).