Here's a great idea:

If you a pregnant and emotional....watch a tear-jerking-chic-flick! Okay, maybe not a great idea. It was a good movie though.

Here's some make up blogging to make up for what I haven't blogged. We will be moving in a week. To a small apartment. We are hoping to have a down payment for our very own house in six months. In good news, this apartment complex that we are moving to has a swimming pool and a play ground. In bad news, well, it's an apartment. small apartment. Did I mention I am so tired of small apartments. The last 8 months have been a nice break. It is for the greater good though.

Here's a picture of our meatloaf. I found the idea to use cookie cutters to shape meatloaf. D thought it was great. Both kids ate meatloaf for possibly the first time ever without fighting about it. D called them cookies. Seriously, if someone gave me a cookie that tasted like meatloaf I would not be excited.
Before cooking:

After cooking: (cook's notes -- do not over cook...)

I love my kids but they make me crazy. Perhaps I have mentioned this before?

D is only 50 quarters away from his Wall-E truck. He's got a chart on the wall where he can earn quarters for doing jobs. Right now he is working towards a Wall-E truck to go with his Wall-E and EVE toys. It is a $60 toy. Roy took pity on the poor kid and decided that if D earned $20 we'd pay the rest. This seemed like a good idea so he could get the toy before he was 12. D's actually earning more like $26 and we're teaching him about tithing along the way. Ever 10th quarter goes in his tithing bank. He's such a good kid.

K isn't earning quarters. It's too advanced for this one year old. Baby #3 is doing fine by all accounts. She's an active little thing. Usually that's okay and reassuring. Sometimes its down right inconsiderate. It's like she doesn't even think about the fact that she's inside my body! Oh well.

Well, time for me to go find something else to do instead of packing/planning of the move.

I hate Qwest.

I wasn't going to blog about this again because, really, you all don't care. But I'm pretty worked up and find this to be an appropriate outlet in a way that yelling at my children isn't.

I didn't tell you that I finally talked to someone helpful and nice. We communicated, he took care of the problem. He told me that my final bill would be "$82 and some change." I verified at least THREE times that this replaces the old $197 charge. This $82 would be all that I owe period. Yes, yes, yes. So no more $197? No cancellations fee? Yes. Yes. Are you sure? Yes. I should get my bill in 10-14 days (ish). When I hung up the phone, I was hopefully skeptical. I even told Roy, we'll see what comes in 10-14 days. Here's what came: NOTHING.

I did receive notice in my ebills that I had a Qwest bill of $411 due. However, since I had cancelled my service, the Qwest site would no longer allow me to access my bill. I waited 4 days to give them a chance to send a paper bill before calling to request a statement be mailed to me.

Today we get the mail. Still no Qwest bill buuuuuuuuutttt..... A STATEMENT FROM A COLLECTION AGENCY!!!!

I HATE THIS STUPID COMPANY!!!!! Apparently no one knows what is going on at this place. As my DH would say, they couldn't find their b*tt with both hands! I have yet to call Qwest, but you can bet I will. Not that I really expect it to do any good. I'll either get someone who can't/won't help me or someone who will 'help me' but really do nothing.

P.S. I love being married to a lawyer.

It was Roy's birthday.

That was Monday. Here is the blog about it. I never did get around to the one about going to Seattle. I still may do the one about some new recipes I've tried. We'll see.
Anyway, the birthday.
D LOVES birthdays. He came in at 2:30 am Monday to notify me that the CD he'd gotten from the library had a birthday song on it. At 3:30 am he bounded in bubbling about how we could sing it for daddy's birthday and who knows what else. (I'm not a very good listener at that time of day.)
Finally, it was really morning. Roy was ready for work but before he could leave we-of course- had to listen to the song. It is pretty catchy. Plus it is really fun to watch D sitting in his little chair, foot bouncing along to the music following the words.
During the day the kids and I went on a quest to find the traditional ice cream cake. It should have been easier that it was. D was waiting in the car for me by 9:30am. At 10, we go by Baskin Robbins -- they don't open until 11. We had some other errands to run. We stopped by Safeway where we picked up some Captain Crunch (5 boxes for $.99 each!). Roy's fave is the peanut butter stuff. We headed to Goodwill to browse around. D found a game he wanted ($3 brand new!). Finally, it was 11 and we headed to BR again. They didn't have what we wanted so I figured 'no big deal, we'll go to Dairy Queen'.
Bigger deal that I thought. After driving 10 minutes to the nearest DQ only to find it waaaaay old school. No dining room. No drive up. Park car, walk to window, order food, wait in cold for said food, go back to car and drive home. I didn't even get out to inquire about cakes. We just went back to BR but a different store with more cake varieties.
Home to get dinner ready. We wrapped 3 boxes of PB Captain Crunch and the game D found at Goodwill in old grocery store ads. Since dinner was taking a while and Roy got home early we sang Happy Birthday and opened presents. Two games of Horton Hears a Who later we ate dinner, sang Happy Birthday again and enjoyed cake.
Good times.

How NICE!

So nice: *dripping sarcasm*
It took Qwest 5-7 days to hook up my phone and internet. It took 5-7 hours to disconnect. Gotta love that.
Actual statements by Qwest customer service folks:
"Sir, I am not going to apologize for this." (talking to Roy, not me)
thanks, not looking for an apology but that attitude is definitely earning my business!

"I'm sorry you were quoted the wrong price."
uh, I'm sorry but that is the price I agreed to pay, wrong or not. I DID NOT AGREE TO THIS INSANE NUMBER YOU ARE CHARGING ME!

I'm sure there are more but I try to block them from my memory.
In better Qwest news, I did finally talk to someone who was both nice and helpful! If I had talked to the one nice and helpful person working there first, perhaps I wouldn't have felt it so necessary to disconnect.
(If you work for Qwest, please don't send me hate mail. I'm sure there is more than one nice and helpful person who works there. I just had a very difficult time finding them. Also, I know many customers are huge jerks. That does NOT make it okay to treat everyone like they are incompetent imbiciles.)

For reals nice: *warm fuzzies and butterflies for all!*
A week and a half ago, the people at the gym's kid's club gave me this great news:
'D is so well behaved. He never hits the other kids even when they are playing Star Wars and the other kids hit him. He has a great imagination and plays so well. We really enjoy having them both here. K is so cute and never gives us any trouble.'
*warm fuzzies for the gym people*

Today I got an email from D's primary teacher telling me how smart he is and how quickly he learns the things she is teaching them. She said, "You are obviously doing a good job." Extra cookies after FHE for that kid! Anytime he makes me look good he definitely gets extra cookies. Heaven knows how many people have thought otherwise about my parenting skills!
*warm fuzzies for the people who teach D's class*

Baby Pyatt Update

I have been meaning to blog more about the fact that we are expecting baby number three. It isn't that we aren't excited or not thinking about it. In fact, the baby comes up regularly in conversations around here. D is big enough this time he wants to know how the baby comes out. We have been having some interesting dinner conversation.

Last Monday for a 'special FHE' we went to the ultrasound. D was super excited. He couldn't wait to find out if it was a boy or a girl. K was more trepidatious. In fact she was quite alarmed when the tech put the gel on my stomach. Daddy had to hold her and comfort her. D didn't care about the gel as long as it didn't touch him. This also meant that I couldn't touch him, just in case...

So, the baby. I was going to post every single ultrasound picture here because I know everyone loves ultrasound pictures. Then I remembered my scanner doesn't work. You'll just have to imagine the black/greyish pictures yourself.

It is a girl. We are right on target for the July 2 due date. Everything is healthy, present and developing properly. Her little heart is beating and she is wiggly. I have started to feel her move -- mostly when I'm lying in bed.

I have had mixed feelings throughout this pregnancy. For much of it, I really haven't felt pregnant. Sick, yes. Fat, yes. Pregnant, not so much. I am starting to get past that. The level of excitement has varied for me. At times I get really excited to have a small newborn again. Then other times I think about breastfeeding or waking up at night and feel less than excited.

I know I will love this baby. I was sort of hoping for a girl. I was afraid we wouldn't have another girl. D and Roy were looking forward to a boy. They are both excited for a girl but D was a little put out when we first found out it was a girl. Now, of course, I'm afraid we'll never have another boy.

As for my body, I am still inbetween maternity and regular clothes. I wear maternity dresses to church because there is no way I can squish into my regular skirts anymore. During the week though, I can still fudge most things. This is a blessing and a curse. People are getting more and more comfortable assuming I'm pregnant but there is still some awkwardness about whether I'm preggo or need to work out more. That goes away if I put on a maternity shirt. The pants with the belly flap... well, fortunately, I'm still a little ways off from wearing them - I think.

AAAARRRGHHH! These kids are driving me crazy. Sorry. Just had to get that off my chest. This is taking me forever to type between them joining me on my lap, spilling milk all over the floor and then playing in it, needing drinks, giving me toys, climbing on things.... We will have three soon...

The Zag game last night

Last night, Roy and I went to see the Zags play in Portland. I'm going to admit something here that may forever scar my relationship with Ray (not that he reads this but ya never know): I wasn't all that excited to go. I mean, I wasn't dreading it or anything. It was just kind of indifferent. Kind of, Meh. However, to redeem myself, I did get into the spirit of the game once we arrived and had a really good time. I cheered and clapped and even started to know the names of some of the players. (Not like Roy who was cheering for them by their first names.)
The game was, of course, all the better because the Zags won. It's not nearly as fun if they lose.

So although I am not a Gonzaga know-it-all, I am going to bestow upon you some of my learnedness from last night. By far, I think I liked Pargo the best. He played practically the entire game! He is a natural leader. It was very enjoyable to see his interaction with the coaches and teammembers that you just don't see on TV. He had fun and was good at what he did. He could use some practice time on the free throw line though.
I don't know if Daye was having a bad night or what, but I really wasn't too impressed with him. He played well enough, I suppose. But everytime the refs would call something on him he would get such a dumb expression of "What are you talking about?". I understand that sometimes refs make bad calls. But MAN UP. Not every call was bad.
Uh, the other guys looked good. The second half the Zags played so much better. They were more aggressive under the Portland basket. They were fouling much less and just looked like a team. It was very fun to watch.
So, overall, I would definitely go watch the Zags play again if someone wants to give me free tickets.

I'm so frustrated.

Seriously. How hard could it possibly be to be a customer service business in this day of computers?! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ENTER MY INFORMATION IN CORRECTLY!!!! I am so sick of the mistakes these businesses make.
Take for example the illustrious company of Qwest. Spirit of Service. (If I were of a lesser vocabulary there would be some expletives right here.) Six months ago we moved. I spent no less than AN HOUR on the phone with a Qwest Rep to get my service moved and add a phone line. AN HOUR!!! Only to find out several days later when my service was suppose to start that my bumbling rep had NOT ENTER A SINGLE THING INTO THE COMPUTER AND THAT TIME WAS ESSENTIALLY WASTED!!! Good thing I had absolutely nothing else to do with my time, huh. So I spent another oh so expeditious phone call with Qwest so that I could have service. I have been paying my bill faithfully for the past five months until I get this bill. My "price for life" bill: $41.41 is $194.27 today. Yup. Super. Let me just go out back to my money tree and I'll get that right in the mail. So I call Qwest. Naturally. The ever helpful rep points out that I haven't been paying for my internet for these past 6 months. (THEN WHY WAS MY BILL $40?! I HAVE THE CHEAPEST PHONE LINE EVER!!!) I should be grateful that Qwest is only going to charge me for the last 3 months instead of the last 6. Oh yes. Thank you for your generous service. I mean, truly, I should totally have to pay for your mistake. HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THIS STUFF RIGHT???!!!!!!
I was very polite on the phone. I didn't raise my voice or say anything nasty. Actually I hung up rather quickly but not rudely. I think I even said, "you too" when she wished me to have a nice day.
Or, how about another example of KP. I HATE INSURANCE. I think I said that before. I had to request 3 times (!) to get our membership cards sent. Really. They missed billing us for the first month so we had to fork out over $1,000 the next month to pay our premium. WE STILL HAVEN'T RECEIVED A MEMBERSHIP BOOKLET EXPLAINING OUR BENEFITS (Yes, I've asked.) I've called three times about charges from November that they assure me are incorrect (they are) and each time the answer has been "Well, yes, I see it here in the computer..."
I could talk about the $164 Verizon bill or the other KP bill for Lab work that I didn't even have to have. HOW DO SOME OF THESE COMPANIES STAY IN BUSINESS? Oh, because idiots like me keep sending them money.
Anyway, I have to go water my money tree so that it will eak out a few more hundreds. Really, I should have planted the thousand money tree. What was I thinking?!