Weekend Woes

Thursday evening we had a wonderful dinner celebrating Kai's 2 years home. We met with family at our favorite Chinese restaurant and I took lots of pictures. Kai truly enjoyed his day.

Friday, after dropping Kai off at school, I took off to the stores with AJ and Anna Grace. They love going to stores and we went from store to store for almost 5 hours, folks! Anyways, while at JoAnn's Fabrics, I picked up some face paints. The kids have been asking to paint their faces for quite some time. It's not something I've done before, but I figured I'd give it a try. My friend Tonya is a pro at this, and both Anna Grace and Kai have seen pics of her beautiful girls sporting their Mama's artwork, and they love it!

When Kai came home from school I took out the paints and they were ecstatic! After I got them calmed down enough to be able to sit, I began the face painting. Anna Grace turned out to be a beautiful butterfly and Kai was a roaring tiger. When I was all done with them, I had them close their eyes and stood them before the mirror. I counted to 3 and had them open their eyes. Oh! The looks on their faces were priceless, especially Anna Grace. She first looked very confused/scared, but then her little face broke out into that huge million dollar smile of hers! Kai saw his face and immediately the "R.O.A.R.I.N.G" began! AJ was curious about watching the other kids having their face painted, but he wanted no part of it on his own little face. I'm glad to say that Amanda joined in on the fun and she got her face painted like a doggie! Too cute! I, again, took lots of pictures.

Now here is where my "weekend woes" began. I took the kids outside with their painted faces and let them play with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. We had a great time and were playing the-tiger-chases-the-butterfly game. While they were doing this, I was clicking away with my camera. After a while, I went and put the camera on the roof of my van and started drawing alongside the kids on the driveway.

Shortly afterwards, Scott came home and told me he was making dinner. So, I brought the kids in, gave them baths and sat down with them to watch the movie, Snow White, while we waited for dinner. We ate, tucked them in and I went straight to bed since it had been such a busy day.

The next morning we started working in the yard. The kids were out there with their pails and shovels and AJ's little face was completely black with dirt. I ran inside to get my camera, and I couldn't find it. Then, I remembered that I had put it on the roof of my car. So, I go out to the garage. No camera. I'm now stressing and searching every nook and cranny for it. Scott notices and says, "What're you looking for?" I told him that I thought I had left my camera on the roof of the car but it wasn't there and that I couldn't find it.

He suddenly gets a very solemn look on his face and says to me, "When did you do this?" I said, "Late afternoon, before you came home." He then looked at me and said, "While you were watching the movie with the kids, I realized we were out of milk and I ran to the store!" I couldn't believe it. My camera was on the roof!!!!!! He then went into the lecture of "it wasn't a great place to put it...blah...blah....blah". But, he did start walking down to the end of the street looking for it.

I was so upset at myself. How could I be so stupid? The thing that bothered me most was that all of Kai's 2nd anniversary gotcha pictures were on that memory card.

A few minutes later, Scott was back. Empty handed. I just couldn't accept the fact that the camera was gone. At least, if I had it, we had purchased the accidental damage policy on it. I hopped in the car and decided to go drive slowly down the street looking for it. Nothing. By then, tears are streaming down my face. Of course, I was praying through my search. As I am pulling into the driveway back home, I notice something shiny in the neighbor's parkway. It was my camera! I leap out of the car and go running over, only to find that it was literally crushed. I tried turning it on and it turned on, only to see a huge spider-web looking design in the visibly destroyed LCD screen. BUT....God is always good. My memory card was intact!

Unfortunately, my laptop no longer reads memory cards, but it's ok. I know my pictures are on there and I can download them from Amanda's card reader. Thank you, Jesus!

Scott promised to get back on the phone with Hewlett Packard (he did this once before for me) and get me a new camera. He's hoping to keep this one when we finally get the Canon I want.

So, tomorrow for Anna Grace's small little 3rd birthday celebration at home, I will not be able to take pictures. My sister and Mom and coming and I'll be able to get a few with their cameras. For those of you that know me well, I HATE being without a camera. But, I guess worse things in life could happen....so I won't complain.

To close with my woes. I spent 6 hours preparing our tax return online so I could e-file it. When it was all done and I click to e-file it, I get a message that a return was filed on March 15 using this same Social Security number! Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. Somewhere, something went terribly wrong and the IRS is showing that they have accepted a return from us that we never filed. That will be tomorrow's task for the day. Don't you just love calling Uncle Sam? NOT! But again, worse things could happen.