Week in Review....

Okay, so the title is very lame, but I couldn't come up with anything else without referencing my DSL problem. And I'm sure y'all are getting tired of hearing about that! However, that is the reason I'm posting a week in review....

Let me just say one last thing about the DSL problem. I just have to get it all out. There was a problem. It wasn't working. I called Bell South and after going around and around, transferred here and there, was able to speak with a very helpful technical person. She talked me through a whole bunch of steps and was able to restore the DSL.

For about thirty minutes.

So, I called back, only to discover that, even though I had spent nearly an hour on the phone with her and had her full name, there was no way to get back to her. This meant starting over from scratch with a technical person with a heavy accent. Now, I have no problem with people of other nationalities working the phone banks of major American corporations. But. It would be nice if the person could understand American english and speak American english.

Needless to say, I gave up. I called again. I gave up. Again. And again. Every day for over a week I made attempts and every day I failed. Until finally I got serious. I sat down at that computer and recreated the steps taken by the very first technical person. And then I remembered!

As she was hanging up, she told me that she could not help me with my router because it isn't a Bell South product. So, she gave me a few tips. And in those tips I found the answer to my DSL problem. One of the adjustments she had me make disabled my connection.

This is why when I called Bell South and spoke with the techs with the heavy accents, they couldn't see the problem! From their end, my DSL looked like it was working fine. And it was...

Except for that one small adjustment we made to enable my router. I set it back to default and everything was fine. Except my router wouldn't work. I poked the reset button and Whaaa-laaa! Internet! Yay! And it only took me 9 days to figure it out and four hours to fix it.

*Sigh*

So, now you know the whole story and I'm done talking about it. Finally....

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Now I'm going back to last weekend. My son, Jack celebrated his 15th birthday on October 30th. It takes a lot to get a reaction from a teenager these days, so we knew his card had to be special. Dad said to leave it to him. He came home with a double jalepeno chili burger from Sonic, and he had put money inside the foil wrapper! Genius! The boy was ecstatic about the burger and the money!

Later that night we had birthday cake. I made a chocolate cake with white icing and filled it with candles. It was really sweet to hear my little one singing Happy Birthday loud and clear to his big brother. Of course, he cried when Jack blew the candles without his help. So, we lit them again and it proved to be a bit too much for the little guy. He had to spit on three of them to put them out. Ughhh.... Needless to say, no one had much of a cake appetite after that.....

Note the really bad photo composition....

mortified teen, headless dad,

and a stack of towels right beside the cake.

Yeah, but what about my mad cake decorating skilz?!?!

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Halloween was so much fun this year! I know it's late, but I just have to post some photos of the boys. The older two dressed up and went on their merry way to do the things that teens do on Halloween. (*fingers in ears* la alaalalalalalalaalalal I'm not listening!) I didn't get photos of them. Sam was a cowgirl and Jack was dressed all in black with a silver mask. Probably something from some hacker movie...

Here are photos of the younger boys:

Eli the gumball machine. This is not the best picture. All of the balloons had worked around to his back! His hat says, "Gumballs 25 cents". On the front is a silver plaque that has the place to insert your quarter and retrieve your gumball.



And this is Mario and Luigi. Everybody loves the Mario brothers, right?!? These costumes were so easy to make. The blue 'overalls' were old polo shirts that had stains and were unwearable. I just cut them with scissors into the shape of overalls. The big yellow buttons are made from scrapbooking paper and glued on with plain ol' Elmer's glue. The hats are baseball caps covered with old t-shirts and the initial logos are paper and marker, sewed on with white thread. Cute, huh?

Fun was had by all, even though I was SO sick! I had the worst cold and completely lost my voice. (And ate way too many fun size candy bars, but that's a whole nuther story....)

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On November 1, I officially began my affiliation with Deep South Moms with my very first post.
Writers are required to add a photo to each post, and it was really tough finding one that represented what I was thinking. You have to be careful about copyright and all that. So, I took one myself. What do you think? I was really proud of myself....

I am so honored to be a contributor to Deep South Moms. It really is a great blog. Here is a link to the contributors' bios. You'll find me about halfway down the page.

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My daughter, Sam just finished her first week of school at Paul Mitchell. She had a great week and she really loves it! She fits in well with the atmosphere and already loves the people. However, she is finding that the step into adulthood is not as easy as she expected.

It really does signal an end to those carefree days of childhood. *sniff sniff* I did warn her that this would change her and her outlook, but didn't anticipate the overnight change or the growing pains from leaving some of your friends behind. I think she'll be okay, though. She is off for her weekend on Sundays and Mondays and she's already wanting to go back.

I meant to get some photos of her with her kit. It is amazing! Maybe I'll get a chance to do that this week...

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Did you check out my CSNBaby review and giveaway? I don't do many of these, but this nursery decor website was just too good to pass up. Plus, I really loved that plush Spongebob blanket! Go ahead and enter to win one for the little one in your life. You get to choose the character...

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This brings me to another birthday. Trent celebrated his 12th birthday yesterday. Again, we had cake, but this time we had chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The little one sung loud and long to his brother. (It was cute!) And yes, he cried when the candles were blown out. We learned our lesson, though, and he got one candle on his piece of cake. That way he could spit all he wanted!

Again, check out my mad skilz...

And I get to practice again in one month!

My little one will be four in just four more weeks. (yikes!)

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Well, I think that pretty much catches y'all up. Whew... I know it was a lot to take in! I'll be back tomorrow with Medical Monday and I hope to make some bloggy visits. I have missed some great moments on my favorite blogs and I can't wait to get back into the swing of reading and commenting about everyone's entries. Oh, and participating in some great weekly link-ups.

See ya!