I think we can finally throw the pacis out...

This weekend Craig and I went to a wedding down in Midland. It was a nice get away. Funny thing is we went back to the hotel, I worked on homework and Craig watched ESPN. We are so routine!!

Anyhow, Conor stayed with my Mom and Dad this weekend. I had taken all of his stuff over that Saturday morning, but somehow left his paci in the car. Yes, for all you readers out there Conor still used his paci. Not much, but usually when he gets really tired. Anyway, Craig and I take off for Midland not knowing we left the paci in the car. When we get back my Mom told me in secret that Conor went the entire weekend without it. As soon as we got home this evening, I hid them all in the cabinet. He never asked for it and even went to sleep without it!!! Yea!!!

I remember last week watching Super Nanny tackle the paci. She put them all in a bag and tied them to a tree telling the little girl that the paci fairy was going to come and take the pacis to the babies who needed them. The next morning the little girl went outside to the tree and instead of the bag of pacis she found a new baby doll. I was just convinced I was going to have to do the same with Conor. We will see how the next few days go. Craig is going to be out of town on business from Tuesday night through Friday and I may give in before the week is over with. Let's hope not.

They finally started building the house next to us. The trenches are there for the footings. I can't quite figure out what it is going to look like. You know me, Craig calls me nosey but I call it well informed. We can't wait to have neighbors. Hopefully, they are cool people. Kids would be nice too.

I end the blog with a couple of pictures from the wedding.
Have a great week!

The last picture is from my Janelle and Jay's wedding back in July. I had not seen these guys in almost 10 years. What a great reunion.

Happy Birthday to Dad and myself!

WARNING: This is a really long entry. :0)

We are going to start this blog with Friday. I washed my cell phone in my jeans. I was on the phone when I got out of the car. My hands were full, so rather than throw my phone in my purse, I put it in my pocket. I do it alot at work, but generally I keep it in my purse. I was sitting in my chair and suddenly got a sinking feeling in my stomach. I jumped up and ran into the laundry room. Sure enough, I opened the washer in mid-cycle and there was the cell phone. This is the second expensive electronic item that I have managed to destroy in the last month. First the vacuum, now the cell phone. I made a comment about the dishwasher the other day and Craig said "watch it, don't break the diswasher". Hopefully, I am done breaking things. Then again, we have all heard the saying that things happen in three's.

We made it another year! For those of you who may not know, my Dad and I have the same birthday: September 4th is the Lucky Day!

It was a weekend full of celebration. I love it when my birthday falls on a holiday. It lasts the whole weekend. I had the day off work on Friday. My mom was off too and we took Conor to the Dr. For his Hepatitis A booster shot. It is getting harder and harder for Conor for shots. I think I have discovered a trick, though. Here is my secret. I take someone with me. I do the holding, so I am the bad guy. Then after the shot is done and over, Conor goes to the person who didn't hold him down for some much needed TLC. He only screamed for a second or two. Then all he wanted to talk about was his "owie" and how much it hurt. To take his mind off things, we went to McDonald's for lunch, then to the mall to play and see the puppies.

Saturday, we spent most of the day at home. We visited Craig's cousin for a bit. Then we went out for our birthday dinner. My Dad and I chose Texas Roadhouse. Great steak, but hostess sat us in the crappiest place. The booth was too small for 8 of us, so we ended up at two tables across from eachother. After dinner we were all too full for cake. We saved it for Sunday.

Moving on to Sunday... We all went to breakfast that morning, then on to Target. Target had a sale on the boy's jeans and t-shirts and Conor needed some for the cooler weather. The rest of Sunday we just hung out and my Dad cooked dinner for us. Then we had birthday cake!!

I promise I am not tired in this picture.

On Monday, since it was a holiday, we all got to spend yet another day together. We decided to go ahead any buy Conor's Halloween costume. I am always afraid that we will wait too long and they will be out of what we want. This year he will be Superman. He tried it on today, but not long enough for pictures. That is ok, we will save the pictures of Halloween.

On to the weather. It has been raining here since Friday! It was much needed, much welcome rain. I don't know exactly how much it was something like 3-4 inches I think. It was a slow rain, not a downpour. It finally cleared up this evening. I am kinda sad to see it go, but at the same time I and feeling the need to some sunshine.

Finally, I told you all I would update you on my first week of school. I am glad that I have made it through the first week of grad school. But, I think this will be my only class with UPhxOnline. There are two reasons why I am dissatisfied. #1: I am unhappy with the format of the class, it seems very unorganized and confusing. I am generally comfortable in the online setting, so many of my classes at Wayland were online and I did fine in those. #2: I saw my bill. Holy mackerel!!! $1900 for ONE stinkin' class. I am fairly certain that my adviser discussed the cost with me, but I am also fairly certain it wasn't that much. I am smarter than that. At that rate, I can only take 2 classes a year before my tuition benefits are used up at work. If I only take 2 classes a year, then I won't finish my graduate degree for another 4 years! YEA RIGHT! I started looking into other options, and I going to call West Texas A&M Online and see what they have to offer. On the WTAMUOnline they have a tuition calculator, I can take 3 classes there vs. The one at UOP.

Back in school....

As some of you know, I decided to go to graduate school. I never thought that I would take the next step. After all, it took almost 10 years to get my undergrad degree. I chose to attend the University of Phoenix Online pursuing a MBA with emphasis in Marketing. I have had a lot of people ask me "Why UOPXOnline?". Here are my reasons....

1. I don't have to take the GRE. If I can get out of taking a test, believe me I will. Besides, that is one less thing I have to pay for and I don't have to worry about my scores.
2. I don't have time to attend a traditional University. I don't like to be away from my family and quite frankly, night school was a pain in my butt.
3. UOPX is quite pricey. Luckily, Wells Fargo hooks its employees up with a sweet tuition reimbursement program. Nothing like going to school for free.
4. I can be done in as little as a year and half with accelerated schedules. All this from the comfort of my home.
5. What do I plan to do with my additional education? I have no idea. I know it will come in handy one day. I thought about getting a teaching certificate a few years down the road so I can be off with the kids in the summer, but I haven't made up my mind about that one yet.

So, my class start Tuesday, and I am kinda nervous. I am not sure why. Maybe since I worked on my undergrad from the time I was 18-27, I had gotten comfortable. Maybe I am nervous since an MBA means business. Or I am simply nervous because I don't know what to expect. Anyway, I will follow-up sometime this week to let you all know how the first few days go.

Pictures of the new vacuum...

So I caught the vacuum on fire.....

Yes, the heading is true. I, Mika McMahan, caught our vacuum on fire Saturday morning. As I was cleaning house on Saturday, I decided that the baseboards needed to be vacuumed. I always use my vacuum hose attachment because it is easy and I don't have to sweep anything up. While my back was turned in the laundry room, one of my cleaning clothes on the floor got sucked up in the Hoover. I didn't realize what happened, of course I didn't see anything get sucked up. Next think I know, the laundry room and front of the house if filled with the horrid smell of burning electrical stuff and smoke. I started screaming for Craig, who was out in the front yard doing some yard work. He threw it outside, looking underneath and there, tangled up on the brush was a damp cleaning cloth that I had just used to dust with. #1: Thank goodness I was electrocuted for the wet cloth on the floor. #2: Why in the hell were the brushes running while I was using the hose attachment. I don't know about you, but I thought those things were only supposed to run while you were actually vacuuming. Well I was wrong. So, Craig checked to see if it would work, and it didn't. The wires and plastic are all melted. There goes a nice 4 year-old Hoover in the trash.

Now, on to the hunt for a perfect vacuum. Do they even exist? I always pay attention to home electronic commercials. It is just something I do. I like to know about the newest technology. Crag and I set out on the quest to find us a new vacuum. We visited tons of websites with customer reviews comparing one brand to another. We went to Sears, Best Buy, Sam's to price check and see what was out there. After quite a bit of back and forth, we decided on a Dyson. So the first thing that come to mind is the price. I am not going to lie, it wasn't cheap. But we figured for the low maintenance and funtionality, you are getting what you pay for. Right? So we get it home, and within like 7 minutes I have it put together. Yes, I did it! No tools, it all just snapped together. Being the cool blogger that I am, I took a before picture of the vacuum and an after just to show you all what this thing could do. Surprisingly, it was quieter than the Hoover. It also moved easier across the floor. Now the true test. Look at the before pictures of the canister.....

Well, blogger won't let me post pictures. I will try again later....

New Baby...

Don't get too excited by the heading :-) The baby news is for Cassie. Micah Lynn was born on Friday morning. I just love babies! We went to visit her on Friday evening. For those of you who may not know Cassie, she is our dear dear family friend. She has been my sisters friend for YEARS! She has stuck by her through thick and thin and is still around. She has been there for our family and is like a sister to us.

Such a cute baby, with a cool name.

Conor was being hilarious this weekend. Last night we were all rolling around on the bed. Conor would pat me on the back and say "Mommy, you're so tired". That just goes to show how much he pays attention to what we say. Then, Craig would hit me on the leg (playing around) and Conor would say "Don't hit Mommy". Then, Craig would try to argue with him, and Conor told him to "Shhh". I really wish I had that on tape. It could be worth $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos.

More about Conor. He has discovered Band-Aids. Everything calls for a band-aid. The disc shooting toy pinched his finger...he wanted a band-aid. He stumped his toe on the picnic table, he insisted on a band-aid. He has a TINY scab on this knee and he is not complete without his band-aid. He was opening a DVD case and it hit him in the face, he was not happy until I got a band-aid. Here is the proof..

And last but not least. Here is a picture of Mommy and Conor together. I wish we took more pictures together, because he won't be this little for much longer...

Last but not least, Craig and I went to see Ron White in concert on Thursday night. He is so damn funny. I mean this guy is just raw to the bone and his comedy routine is so real life. What shocked me was the population older people in attendance. I am talking people in their 50's and 60's. Ron's comedy routine is, how would you put it, vulgar. Lots of cuss words and sex jokes. We had a group of older people sitting next to us and would have so hard. I would almost get embarrassed. Nonetheless, we had a great time.

Party!

We had a fabulous week. Nothing much to report. I had a day off work on Monday. Conor and I spent the day together. We went to Wal-Mart to do some grocery shopping. It was nice not to have to rush and to just take our time down the aisles. Amazing that I only forgot one thing off the list. Usually, I am so distracted when I take Conor with me that I forget why I was there in the first place. Craig and Tye were out for lunch and stopped by to visit us in the Wal-Mart. About an hour later I get a call from Craig saying some lady pulled out of the Wal-Mart parking lot and hit him. And go figure it would be the same side and the last accident. Geesh! What the luck! This is now the second accident with the PT Cruiser. Thank goodness neither one was really bad or his fault, but still it is frustrating. Oh, and just to get something off my mind....what is up with rent cars these days. Maybe it is because I haven't had to drive many rent cars in my lifetime, but with the last two Craig had, they are just terrible. These poor cars are just run to the ground and they smell weird too :-(

Anyhow, Craig and I went to a 40th Anniversary for our friends parents, Pete and Chavela. It was such a wonderful party. The place looked fabulous, the food was good. Craig made a picture slide show for Pete and Chavela. They were so surprised and shocked! He did such a great job. Here is a picture of the dance and the cakes. The other pictures came out too dark.

I made Craig take a picture with me. I wish it came out better, my hair was so cute that night!!!

We are going to see good 'ol Ron White's on Thursday at 7:30. We are so excited. I am so looking forward to it! I will definitely update as soon as I can after the show. Hopefully, I will have some pictures to post.

Have a great week!