Tuesday, June 19, 2012

My wish granted...sort of

This is my Mother's Day card/gift from Max.  It is so thoughtful but that three minutes sure went fast!!


Thursday, June 14, 2012

Sophie's Fiesta

My sweet little Sophie had her seventh birthday and was it ever a fun one.  She wanted her birthday party on her actual birthday, even though Max tried to convince her that it's better to have it the next day because then it's like your birthday lasts longer, which is what he did of course!  It started out perfectly because Sicily spent the night, so they each got breakfast in bed.  The only difference in their trays was that Sophie got a little vase of flowers.  We celebrated all day long...and then it was fiesta time.  The only thing Sophie wanted for her party was a pinata, and the fiesta theme emerged.  As each guest arrived they were given a nametag with a new Mexican name.  Sophie was Isabel for the night!  They played rojo-verde light, and I even tried to teach them amarillo (yellow)!  They did the macarena. They ate tacos. Party favors came from the mercado (market).  We set up a little shop in my bedroom with all kinds of fun things like flip-flops, sunglasses, lotion, treats, glow necklaces, etc., priced in pesos, and they were each given pretend pesos to buy items.  Max was Pedro all night long, helping serve food, run the games for me, and he did the best job as the cashier at the mercado.  The party was topped off with the bashing of the pinata.  It always makes me a little sad to ruin something so cute!  Sophie is always so good to me that it makes it extra fun to spoil her for a day.  She really is a light (a bright amarillo one) in our lives.



















Sunday, June 10, 2012

Juvenile Revenge

Several months ago there was a little mixup with our bill-pay and the balance on our checking account got much lower than normal.  I didn't realize what had happened for several days and in the meantime our mortgage payment, our student loan payment and the transfer to our retirement account all happened like bam bam bam...three big withdrawals in a row on an underfunded account.  Needless to say we were charged overdraft fees and another fee I can't even remember each of those days.  It totaled over two hundred dollars.  Because it was a mixup, and because I usually get my way, I thought it would be no problem to get these fees waived.  I didn't get my way this time.  I was so angry about the situation, that I decided to change banks.  I had been meaning to close these accounts out at Key Bank (I had to throw the name in here just in case any of you are searching for a bank, you will know who to steer clear of!) since March, but it was not on my priority list.  I finally went in on Friday and discovered that each of the last three months I had been charged an inactivity fee on both of our accounts.  What the?  Yeah, apparently it's in the fine print.  Another $150 down the drain.  I said to the teller, "No offense to you because I know you don't make these decisions, but I am so glad to be finished with this bank."  I signed the little keypad as hard as I could, said thank you without smiling at all and then I turned really juvenile...I grabbed a BIG handful of their mints from the table in the lobby.  Sophie said, "Mommy, I don't know if you should do that."  Capri said, "That's a bad bank huh mommy."  I called Steve and told him about it, laughing hysterically, and he said, "Good for you.  You should have grabbed more".  Thanks for having my back sweetie when I am getting my juvenile revenge!