WOW I FEEL OLD! THANKS MIKALA!

I officially feel old! My oldest neice Mikala turns 21 on November 4th and she got engaged this past weekend. I never feel old until I think about her being a junior in college and now she is getting married?!?!?!? Granted my brothers and sister are much older than me and I was only ten when she was born but SHE makes me feel old. Mikala's fiance Josh planned a romantic proposal that just made me cry and wish I had a proposal like that. Mikala was coming home this past weekend for her family birthday party and when she arrived everyone had left the house and the only one there was Josh waiting for her in his bedroom. The house was dark with only candlelight and rose petals to guide her way up to the bedroom. He decorated the bedroom with rose petals all over the floor and candles everywhere in heart designs. Josh is a music major with plans to be a minister of music. He had written her a song which he then sang to her, then said his little speech, got down on one knee and proposed. How incredibly sweet is that? Of course she said yes who wouldn't after all of that!! Anyway they will be getting married on May 17 of next year which was a big shock to me. She is quitting school after this semester and moving home to work full time and plan the wedding. Although I am so excited that she will finally be home and I can help her, I wish she would finish college first. She plans to go back when he graduates in 2009. I don't plan on letting her know how much it really bothers me that she is quitting since it is mainly b/c of my own guilt for quitting and never going back. Even the best laid out plans don't always happen when life takes its little turns. It isn't even like a money making deal though in my case I think I just miss that sense of accomplishment. Ok enough about MY guilt over not finishing college and onto my niece. I won't stress her with my views since she is going to have to make her own decisions and she is an adult. When she called me to tell me the news, I was so moved by the proposal that I started to cry then I said "Ok but promise me two things - you won't have children for at least ten years because I can't be a great aunt in my thirties and when you do have children you have to live here so I can spoil them rotten!!" She said, "You are already a "great" aunt!" I said, "Yes but I don't want to be a "great" great aunt yet!" She then answered with "It will probably only be a couple of years!" I am excited for her just a little in shock. She still seems sooooo young to me but I guess she will always be my little girl! I was only ten when she was born and she was my little doll. Still to this day Mikala is the prettiest baby GIRL I have ever seen even right after her birth and she has grown to be a beautiful, determined, intelligent, mature young woman. I wish her all the best the world and her new life have to offer!

IT'S OVER!

Elijah's first season of football is officially over!! He did so good and I am so proud of him! He "averaged" about three or four touchdowns per game but it was just 5 year old flag football we will see how he does next year in tackle. He wants to do tackle now saying he wants to "throw the ball and wear those big things on my shoulders and a helmet". I think that is too funny and have a feeling he won't quite be as excited next year when his little self gets clobbered for the first time! We'll see! We are letting him TRY all the sports he wants right now until he lets us know which sports he would like to keep playing. We are not pushing him into anything like so many parents do however I really hate baseball so I am just praying he doesn't want to play! I don't know if I could watch baseball and pretend to be excited even though I know it is "more exciting" if your own kid is playing! So far he has done basketball, soccer and football but he also wants to try karate and golf (I think golf is the most boring game ever followed closely by baseball!). For now we are back to basketball - yippee! I like and understand basketball so much more! He has to play Upwards one more year since city ball doesn't start until first grade so we are thinking about coaching an upwards basketball team this year! That could be an adventure! I realize this is probably boring for many of you just blogging while I am supposed to be working - ssshhhhhhh! I just have so much to do and don't want to do a thing here anymore!!!!!

TULSA'S TWO MISSING LITTLE GIRLS

Sunday started off to be a good day but went downhill in a fury that made me do some thinking. We went to the aquarium for a birthday then went out to eat. Just when we got home began to relax Chaitra called but when I went to answer she hung up. Next thing I knew someone was knocking at the door and Martez, who was sleeping on the couch, said it was Chaitra and her mom walking in the house. Well all I hear is a girl who was not Chaitra's mom but Erin from down the street asking Martez if he has seen "two little black girls". By this I was thinking she wanted to beat someone up in her ghetto ways. However this was not the case in fact two little girls named Erica, who is 11, and Rosaia, who is 5, were missing. They only live about a block from my house and had been missing for about 6 hours and because of the whole "Broken Arrow Angel" issue there was a panic. Next I must tell you about my six degrees of separation marvel. Ever since I joined MySpace I am amazed at how true the theory actually is and how it pertains to people I know on myspace and in my overall life so I must tell you:

1) Martez has been friends with Tristan for years and now he lives down the street with Erin his girlfriend

2) Chaitra and I have been friends for about 10 years

3) Chaitra goes to Nursing school with Erin

4) Erin is friends with Andrea

5) Andrea is Rosaia's mother and Chaitra is Avani's mother

6) Avani and Rosaia went to daycare and preschool together for years
Odd I know....dodododododo........happy Halloween affect!

Rosaia was at Erica's grandma's house where Erica's grandma was SUPPOSED to babysit her. Erica's grandma left to go only God knows where telling the girls to stay inside the house. To her surprise the girls and the bikes were gone when she returned home. She wasn't really worried when she got home figuring they were just riding bikes just up and down the block since they never go far but when they didn't return for hours she started to worry and decided to call the police SIX HOURS LATER!!!!!!!! This is where we come in. We all hop in a car and go over to the house and ask the police what we can do to help. At five o'clock they tell us they are "working" on an Amber Alert, trying to get the news crews and police helicopters on the scene. They were asking people to comb the streets, knock on doors, drive around yelling out the girls' names and go into the woods. We got to go into the woods first- YIPPEE! Not too bad I am a country girl at heart and I can handle it!! We tell the Grandma we will be in the woods and to call Erin if she hears anything! The Grandma replies with "Thank you, I think I am starting to get worried!" Chaitra and I just looked at each other. We get into the car where I just flip out!! That bitch is crazy - you didn't lose your keys woman you managed to misplace two irreplaceable children"I THINK I AM STARTING TO GET WORRIED" AFTER TWO LITTLE GIRLS HAVE BEEN MISSING FOR SIX HOURS! You have got to be joking. If my five year old son Elijah was missing and not answering for even a couple minutes I would "start" to worry!! After ten minutes I would be like a chicken running around with my head cut off screaming for him to please stop playing and come out of hiding because mommy was scared. After twenty minutes I would be screaming his name everywhere, calling the police, running up and down the street or wherever and calling everyone I know to help me look --- ALL AT ONCE! (I am a great multitasker especially in a rush!) After six hours I wouldn't have any worries at all because I would be sedated in a mental hospital from a psychotic breakdown at just the mere thoughts that would takeover my mind about my baby boy or in a jail facility for killing the bitch who was supposed to watch my child and left him at home with an obviously irresponsible 11 year old. If Andrea wanted to let Erica watch Rosaia then she wouldn't have even asked the Grandma to watch her. That was obvious to me but obviously not the Grandma I guess she had more important things to do. Well we searched the woods and creeped ourselves out when we found pink clothes. We thought for sure the worst imaginable thing had happened so who did they send in to see what it was -me. I figured it was better off since I didn't actually know the girls maybe it would be better if I found a bad outcome rather than them. Turned out to be a pink blanket not clothes, a ratty old nasty pillow, blue battery-powered alarm clock, a ramen noodle package, 3 very old books and a pair of men's shoes that belonged to some homeless man living in the woods by my house. Nice to know! As I am telling Chai and Erin what I found they are just standing there crying at the mere idea of what we could have found so I tried to stay as positive as possible. Where exactly does a homeless man need to be that he has an alarm clock? We then found what appeared to be another small village of homeless people living in the woods. Clothes hanging all over trees, empty canned food items everywhere, burnt book pages for warmth and the list could go on and on. Guess whose children will never play in the woods - sorry Avani, Elijah, Isaiah, and little Tristan no wandering in the woods for you EVER!! Well we made it to the other end of the woods and after pulling wire out of my flip flop and tiny ticks off of our legs- YES MELANIE I was wearing flip flops in the woods I didn't think to change shoes or clothes in my mad dash to join the child search - we went back to the house to get an update. I kept saying are we sure they have called everyone and they kept telling me yes. When we get there more cops are searching the neighborhood and people were everywhere looking in yards, yelling and knocking on doors. Now to me some of this did not make sense and I just kept saying they had to be lost and at times Chai would agree with me and then just make up another scenario. Here was mine - They were fine but lost or afraid of getting in trouble so they didn't want to come home because if someone was going to kidnap a little girl I see a big problem with this particular chain of events. No one has seen the girls or the bikes. If someone is going to take both girls (which is highly unlikely), not be seen and get away fast why would he take the time to take the bikes. Just more evidence. Plus how would he keep both the girls in the car without hurting them and causing a scene in order to load the bikes. It just didn't make sense to me! If you were going to snatch a kid you only take one, the smallest no accessories and get outta dodge, right? We have all watched enough crime shows and that was the only funny part of all of this was each of us saying....."well on CSI"....."chances are if they aren't found in the first 24 hrs then it isn't a live outcome" - Without a Trace.....we went on and on. Once we realized we were doing it we laughed and thought we would make some pretty good detectives. When we returned back to the house Andrea was there and understandably an emotional wreck. She had been searching and calling everyone. There was a group of about 10 people just calling people which made me nervous. By this time all the close friends and family had been called so now they were just grasping at straws. At 6:30 pm the infrared police helicopters finally showed up and flew over the neighborhood. Here's the thing they only flew over our neighborhood. I would be raising hell. Why would the helicopter only fly over our neighborhood and still no breaking news or Amber Alerts? What's the point? I don't think people realize how many wooded areas are around us for miles even in neighborhoods. Well we drove around, yelled and walked for hours. Oh yeah forgot to tell you a funny part. We went down this old dirt road which was unnerving and got to a point where they were scared and wanted to turn around. I love scary stuff well except spiders! Anyway they said this looks like someplace a person could get killed my answer was exactly that is why we are out here!!! The fraidy cats decided to turn the car around. They said aren't you scared. My answer maybe a little anxious but a killer would have two big girls me and Chai so he would probably just take Erin. (Just so you know Chai and Erin are mulatto) Erin replies with hey don't you watch scary movies they always kill the black people first. My answer - hey Erin can I have your shoes please! She asked why and I said "Well I am going to make sure he knows you and Chai are half black and chances are he will take you first since you are a smaller easier grab so I will need your shoes to run faster since I won't be able to go as fast in flip flops!" Chaitra and I were cracking up then we were back in reality searching some more! We couldn't think of anything else to do and wanted to give up and go home since it was getting darker but then one of us would say what if it were our kids. At almost 9pm we took Erin home, went back over to Erica's grandmas house and it was packed with cars and there was finally a news truck. We wondered what channel it was so I was chosen yet again to walk up and look. I told her it was Channel 8 and asked a group of people nearby if there was any news on the girls. THEY FOUND THEM! I just started crying - the longer we searched the more my positive outlook downgraded to a grave possibility. I was so happy! When I asked if they were okay the guy I was talking to said a bunch of crap that made ABSOLUTELY NO sense!!!! He said they went with some girl they ride bikes with to 51st and Harvard. I said so where are their bikes he said "they rode them and I'm not going to be covering for nobody there are cops everywhere". I don't think he spoke one complete sentence or idea he just kept hopping around like a frog on hot cement!! Gee I think he may have known more than he was telling because I did not ask him if he was going to cover for anyone! I went home and waited for the news to see what they would say. Here is the Channel 8 story: "Tulsa Police searched for two missing Tulsa girls for hours this evening. The girls were finally found at a family friend's house and told to ride their bikes home. No charges have been filed in this case." WHAT THE HELL!!!! That is soooooo far from the truth! Here is the supposed story from later on that evening. Someone called the police saying they had the girls at 51st and Yale supposedly riding their bikes. They had "gone to LaFortune Park to watch some game"! All I can say is I hope Andrea somehow got the truth later because I know for a fact my five year old son cannot ride his bike 10 miles. Crap he can barely ride to the park in our neighborhood without complaining and she is a lot smaller than him!!! Why would they need to go to La Fortune when we have a park in the neighborhood? And how the hell did the 11 year old know how to get to La Fortune from this neighborhood. I know kids now how to get to places or where things are but generally they are places they go daily, family or friends houses and generally you are already near there. Elijah is able to tell me where lots of stuff is if we are in the general vicinity but not 10 miles away and he has been doing that for years. Granted he could probably drive to my mom's but I just don't see it especially on a bike and she is only about 7 miles from here. They were not at a family friends house and what kind of friend would tell them to ride home at 9pm for 10 miles. Plus if it was a family friend I am quite sure they would've called them or been called after almost 10 hours. People were on the phones non stop and I am quite sure the people who you allow to pick up your children would be the first ones called!!!! Someone had them that wasn't supposed to and they were trying to cover their butt. The news said they rode their bikes home which they didn't the police had to pick them up to question them and they still didn't get home until almost 11pm. VERY VERY LONG STORY SHORT this was one of those nights that make you truly appreciate your children and your friends and thank God that nothing disastrous has happened to them. I do not know how I would live knowing my child was just missing and if anything happened I just................well I am crying now so I am going to stop!! I will let you all know when I finally hear what truly happened to these two girls!!

YET ANOTHER BRANSON TRIP WITH SHAN AND QUIN

We went on yet another Branson trip but this time we took Shandolynne and Quinlynne with us. We went to see the Dixie Stampede, shopped til we dropped at the outlets, had a pajama party, went to the Landings and played miniature golf. We had so much fun. Take a look:

PUMPKIN PATCH

Today was Elijah's first kindergarten field trip and being the involved mom that I plan on being I went as a chaperone. We went to Livesay Orchard's Pumpkin Patch in Porter for a day filled with fun.

How cute are they!? Elijah and Richie on the hayride in the top right. Then while walking they all (Elijah, Richie and Jacob) put their arms around each other - too cute to pass the pic opt!

Why aren't these pictures cooperating? For some queer reason I cannot move them where I want. Oh well! Before leaving we took a class photo, I think it is pretty good considering it took forever to even find them all and get them to stop moving!!

HE'S ON FIRE!

My boy is on fire! Last weeks game was for the most part uneventful except for a few flags but this week he was back on track!! FOUR TOUCHDOWNS AND SIX FLAGS THIS MORNING!!!

He was hot! So proud! He was juking, running and diving like a little pro. I guess Martez taught him how to juke this week and he is really good at it. He was the star today well at least in our eyes. One of the parents not realizing we were Elijah's parents said they need to stop letting him run the ball the other kids can't catch up and who taught him how to juke and stiffarm (oops that is illegal) and Martez proudly spoke up - Me, that's my boy! Another parent commented on how fast he was and I proudly said he gets it from me! HA!

I hate football but watching him play and enjoy it makes me so proud to be his mom. Well we have to go now to go to his second game today - a makeup game. He is aiming for six next time!

Our cheerleaders - how cute is that!

THE NICEST INSULT EVER

I had to go to Neighborhood Wal-Mart tonight to get a few groceries and was verbally attacked and loved every minute of it!!!! Weird I know but you will understand why in a sec. I was on the bread aisle and stopped to get a loaf but stopped since a couple was about to walk in front of me. She stopped but when I went to reach across her to grab the bread she started to walk again. I said, "Oh I am sorry I thought you stopped." OK so I apologized but she was not happy. She says, "You better watch where you are going you stupid skinny white bitch!" WHAT SKINNY YES!!!! I reply with "Thank you I do believe that was the nicest insult I have ever received!" She said "What?" with a go to hell look. So I answered with "I've been called a bitch. I don't think I've been called stupid but I KNOW I've never in my life been called skinny so thank you that was sweet!" Seriously it was like skinny was all that mattered. I don't think in my entire life I've been called skinny but since she was easily about 400lbs I guess I was skinny to her. Normally I wouldn't let that crap fly and would flip out but since she called me skinny and she could've easily kicked my ass if she didn't weeble wobble down the aisle first after my attempt I let it all go and smiled!!! Don't get me wrong I don't have physical altercations at the Neighborhood Wal-mart but you don't talk to me that way and not get an earful in return! I think my reply really threw her off because then she said "Ok grab your bread pretty girl. Sorry about that but you are too funny to be mad at!" Gotta love neighborhood Wal-Mart!!!

THINGS CHANGE!

For years Martez has been wanting to go to an OU football game since he has never been. Our anniversary is Sept 27 so I decide to surprise him a little early with OU/TU tickets, I have been to OU games before when I was little but I am NOT much of a football fan unless it is my boy playing but I sucked it up and bought him tickets. That's the way love goes....are you singing?! It was really cute Friday when I gave him an OU shirt with the tickets he said, "Are they real?" No I thought I would get you a shirt and some fake tickets silly! Well we get to the game and discover our seats suck and there is no entry/exit aisle near our seats so we had to climb over about 30 people to get to our seats. Sadly this also meant we would have to climb over those same people to use the restroom or get a drink. Needless to say we didn't pee or drink the entire game and I thought I could died by the 4th quarter! The game went on and on and on.........! Never again will I go to a televised football game! They stop everything for commercial breaks and you sit there. I guess I should've been happy since that was the only time we got to sit. Man was that irritating! Standing for almost 4 hours elbow to elbow is not fun especially if you have plantar fasciitis!! I don't get it why can't they sit down to watch the game. I know our seats sucked but really you can see from anywhere until that one row of people stands and slowly but surely EVERYONE behind stands up row after row. THEN I think the man behind me had something wrong with him like maybe tourettes and I tried not to get annoyed since he couldn't help it I don't think but after the first hour my sympathy wore VERY thin! You can't even imagine how I was after 4 hours!! He would just shout any and all random football words which normally had nothing to do with the current plays. Then he just started yelling things that other people were talking about. One man talking to his friend said the refs needed to go back to Oregon so he yelled "GO BACK TO OREGON!" Then some lady said "what was that" so he yelled "WHAT WAS THAT?!?!?" Take into consideration these people were some of the few not yelling but he made sure to yell out there random personal conversations. Then for hours he yelled "HEY TU YOU ARE LOSING!" Finally I said, "I think they probably know that and they can't hear you anyway no matter how loud and often you yell." This of course didn't stop anything and I wish I could say he was drunk but he wasn't drinking nor did he smell of alcohol since I think I would've been drunk off his breath since he was so close to me. I started feeling like I could hear him even when he wasn't yelling like his voice was stuck inside my head. He hit me in the back of the head about 6 million times and the guy beside him got mad about a call and karate chopped my shoulder and brought tears to my eyes. Martez was not real happy about that but I asked him not to say or do anything since I didn't want to be crushed by an angry mob if a fight ensued especially since we had no exit aisle. But you gotta love when your man would fight for you, I guess! Anyway I tried to enjoy or at least pretend to enjoy the game for Martez's sake but I can't say I wasn't ecstatic when he said we could leave when there was ten minutes left!! YIPPEE! Afterwards we went to the bar where we met about 7 years ago. We haven't been there in almost 6.5 years but have been together ever since so don't say anything about meeting people in bars. Needless to say the bar much like ourselves has had a total overhaul! It was nothing like it was then. They knocked out walls, rearranged and added on a room which now hosts live bands. The live band was hardcore rock 'n roll playing hits from today and all the back to the 80s. We aren't really rock 'n roll/metal people but the 15 people who were there were really nice. They asked what brought us there. When we told them we met there 7 years ago and now we are married with two children but we just wanted to reminisce a little, I got a free beer, woohoo! We stayed about 45 min then went home! All in all we had a great night because we were together without children for once!!!

USE YOUR COMMON SENSE!!

One of my biggest pet peeves is stupid or repetitive questions and I just so happen to have an example. Today at work I was remerchandising an entire twenty four foot aisle of merchandise. Stuff everywhere, replacing hooks, moving labels.....the list could go on and on basically creating a huge mess to make the aisle look better!! A customer comes up to me and asks, "Do you work here?" Seriously! My answer was "yes how can I help you?". My thoughts were "No you freaking idiot I am just a loyal customer who thought this entire aisle needed a change so I volunteered. Yes I work here but I refuse to help people who ask obviously stupid questions!!" Man that crap gets on my nerves. Can we say common sense??? Or I ask an employee to price some stuff and she asks how. Okay let's see you've worked her for almost a year - call me crazy but my guess would be a price gun!!!! Bad few weeks at work obviously so everything is annoying the crap out of me!

THAT'S MY BOY!

Elijah had his first flag football game this morning and it was hilarious and he did SO good! He is playing flag this year to see if he even likes football then he will do tackle next year if he wants. Well the first time he got the ball he ran half way down the field with no one even near him then STOPPED! I do mean completely stopped and stood there! The whole crowd was shouting and laughing "RUN RUN RUN!" It was like Forrest Gump all over again! His reply, "Wait they need to catch up!" Freaking hilarious sometimes I think he may be too nice! I would like to credit his TWO touchdowns afterwards to me because he only learned to run that fast because of running with me far behind him when he is in trouble! HAHA! Two touchdowns in his first game simply amazing and that's MY boy!!! He is a fast little runner! I always thought I was just really slow but he was really fast like Flash was his response! I guess he channeled Flash's running powers! Both touchdowns were great no one was even close to him! Good thing, here he comes NFL (well if he wants to) pay him well so he can take care of Momma. Can you imagine NFL salaries by the time he would play? Dream on Angela dream on! I don't think football overpowers his dream to be the next Steve Irwin, a zookeeper or whale trainer at Sea World yet!

OVER HOMEWORKED

Elijah started kindergarten and has way more homework than I ever imagined. I didn't even expect daily homework let alone projects every weekend. I mean it is like I told my friend I didn't have homework at his age and I turned out to be a genius so what's the deal!! At first I thought maybe Elijah wasn't completing his work in class so I asked the teacher who replied with no he is doing great in class that is assigned homework for all of my students. My friend's daughter is in the class across the hall from Elijah and she has homework but as of now not as much as him. What the crap - he is five!! They are going to burn him out before first grade and it is only the first month! I need to start Isaiah on reading and writing now at age 2 because when he starts he'll be doing book reports on the first week! Ugh!! Anyway so tonight at football practice one of Elijah's friends is on the team so I was talking to his mom and a mom who I know from his soccer team who is a kindergarten teacher and they both said he has way too much! The teacher said yes she assigns homework unlike many of her fellow teachers who do not but she only does it 2 days a week and it's something like write your name 5 times or color something. The other mom said Avery who is also in kindergarten hasn't even had homework yet. WHAT! Hasn't had homework! She also said the books he has been coming home with to learn how to read in two days are the same books her daughter got in first grade! So far Elijah has been able to handle the load as long as I break it up instead of making him do it in one sitting but I really don't want him to hate school and burn out now! Little boys don't want to sit and write their name 50 times after being in school all day - get real!! This is the first weekend out of the past four that he hasn't had a weekend project thank you God! He has handwriting homework for two nights which right now consists of tracing his name 25 times then writing it on his own 25 times, a rhyming maze and coloring worksheet twice a week, a book to learn how to read for two nights amidst the other projects and papers we have had to do! I am worn out so I can't imagine how he feels! I realized at one point I would have to deal with the homework issue but I NEVER ever thought it would be now in kindergarten at age 5!

COMPLETELY THROWN OUT - SIDELINED

So tonight Elijah wanted to play board games and decided he wanted to learn how to play checkers!! YES - I love checkers since playing with my dad for hours when I was younger! However he wanted to play with daddy! :( Oh well I watched in amusement the longest game of checkers EVER!!!!! Martez tried and tried to make Elijah understand you can only move on certain squares in certain directions and he tried to teach him to jump but Elijah wouldn't pick up the checkers he jumped instead picking up random checkers. Well after the neverending first game Martez said he could play again so I jumped in to "help" Elijah aka take over the game and woop Martez's butt!! I kept telling Elijah where to move and wouldn't allow him to move certain men because we had 8 kings left and Martez had 5 which were all trapped by "my" oops Elijah's men. And how dare Elijah try to destroy my unique and crafty trapping skills. Martez had absolutely no where to go unless Elijah moved the wrong man. THEN IT HAPPENED DO DO DO DO! Elijah spewed the words I loathed and cut to the core: Mommy can I play by myself now without your "help"! Oh the pain it was like a stab in the back and my response was: No I am too invested in this game now to quit! You always have to finish what you start son! Very mature I know so quit thinking it! I coordinated another move and again I get "Please I just want to play daddy!" Way to hit below the belt! As he is saying this he moves the wrong man and gets triple jumped and I gave up not being able to handle the rejection and loss that was about to occur from his inexperience and unwillingness to cooperate with my "help"! Anyone up for a game of checkers with the queen!