I was looking for something to post today

And lurking on Megan's blog, trying to catch up a little with what my friends have been doing while I've been not here. Anyway she had this posted a little while back and it looked like a good way to fill today's post ;) BTW, go check out Megan's photography. She's amazing.

So who reads my blog??

1. As a comment on this post, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember! And if we've never met in real life, leave me a comment of your favorite post I wrote and why it was your favorite.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually really funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Soccer Weekend

Note: videos are less than 30 seconds long.

Did you guys get all that rain on Friday? It POURED it's brains out here. And since there was no lightning, all games were on! Ty's team went first and won 3 - 0. He's #20. Can you see all the rain? It was really pouring.



Look how wet G got:



I didn't grab any stills of S3 - just video. We were creaming the other team 7 - 1 before the half so the coach took out all his juniors and seniors and put in the freshmen. The other team got frustrated and started playing really rough. There was this huge guy - and I mean not just tall but big and bulky - who had it out for my kid. I got a clip of him (below) taking him out at the ankles but what I didn't catch was later in the game when S3 manuvered around him with the ball, the kid pulled S3 down by his shoulders and when he was on the ground this huge kid stomped S3 on the hip. He's still limping a little today.



But the best of the weekend was G. She had a game in Hockessin, DE. Watch the video. Bri sends the ball in to G who is in position to score. G flubbs and sends the ball back out to Bri who sends it in to G for a second chance to shoot on goal. G shoots and....

Y4T Presents: After the Rapture

This video was made to demonstrate what it might be like for those who are "left behind" after the rapture occurs. Every Wednesday I make a quick video to help the teens in our youth group Y4T (Youth 4 Truth) understand the message they're being taught either by Pastor Eric or by Steve. You'll recognize the first kid. He belongs to me. The second section of teens stealing my car are Pastor Eric's kids. Hope you enjoy!

Catch a Fire

Ok so for this online composition class I'm taking, the prof had this cartoon pirate that speaks with his voice. We're supposed to be editing and adding to our student pages and he suggested that might be something we could add. I fooled around with it for a bit and then realized I'd probably have to give it my voice. Well I hate the way my voice sounds when it's recorded. Vain, I know. So I trimmed a TobyMac song called WhoopsiDasy (CatchaFire) and the results are hysterical. Watch:




Get a Voki now!

BTW, thank you for the happy greetings in my last post. I missed you guys too. I'll tell you all about it sometime soon but basically I figured this'd be the last summer I'd have free for quite a few years so I decided to travel. And boy did I travel. Beckham bunny is doing great; time to trim him again soon. Hopefully I did a better job of taking care of his hair so Melanie will be able to use it for spinning.

Don't Tell My Mother

Look what the kids came up with this time....

Just don't tell my mother I let them do that.

This Post Is Mostly For My Dad

But you can read it too ;)

I was particularly keen on going to the DC United game last night because it's the only home game against Chicago Fire who has on their roster the man I LOVEloveLOVE to hate, Cuauhtemoc Blanco. He was a very popular Mexican player who, like Beckham, is getting older and is probably going to finish his career in the US. But the man is such an actor it's unreal. He's constantly rolling around on the ground trying to draw the foul. I love to hate him. I was super excited to be able to hate him in person.

Here's our first sighting of the hated man:

Check out the crowd...

AWW! Poor widdle Blanco got hurt!

Dang, he scored.

Eh, we totally lost. S-h-u-t-o-u-t. Bleh.

The hated man greets his hated fans:

One of the MANY reasons I like this sport... They tend to take their shirts off when the game is done. Hubba, hubba!

My two brats, after the game:

The Peanut is NOT a Wimp

Yesterday I had to pick my sister's daughters up from school, Peanut and Eeyore. Since E only has a half day she came with me. We ran a couple of errands ending our running around with a trip to the grocery store. While we were in the produce section picking out an onion, Eeyore started picking on her little sister the way only big sisters can.

"Peanut is so wimpy, she can't even shut a door!"

Now Peanut is small but she's no wimp. However she is the baby and she is a lot like her Aunt Sara. She uses charm and her baby-of-the-family status to get out of having to do any strenuous work. I know this because it's exactly what I do, er, um, did. So I defended her and said, "Nah, women in this family aren't wimps. We're strong."

E chimed in by saying, "I'm strong. I can pick up a gallon of milk."

Peanut, silent no longer said, "I can pick up a gallon of milk too!"

Well a gallon of milk just happened to be on my list so we made our way to the dairy department where all three girls, striving to prove their non-wimpiness, each picked up a gallon of milk. "Er, ladies, I only need one gallon so two of you will have to put your gallon back," I said.

Immediately three voices called, "Not me!" They proceeded to play the "not me" game until finally Eeyore was the last to say it and she had to put her gallon back. We stood there for a little while longer while the two younger girls continued to shout out, "NOT ME! NOT ME! NOT ME!" in unison over and over until finally I said, "Ok we're obviously going to have to move on to Rock, Paper, Scissors."

I held both gallons of milk and stood there while the girls played the elimination game. E threw paper, Peanut threw scissors. Peanut was victorious and E had to put her gallon of milk back. Peanut was very happy with herself as you might imagine.

So as we go to walk away from the milk case, I look up finally and see there is a line of people waiting to get a gallon of milk. ROTFL! I blushed, apologized and we took off for the check-out.

We got around the corner and Peanut declared the milk was too heavy and I traded my onion for her gallon. LOL

The best part of the story though... I got home and was telling Steve about our adventures in the grocery store and once he got done laughing he said, "You do realize we have two other gallons of milk in the fridge downstairs, don't you?"

E Teaches Me About Joseph

"First his dad bought him the most expensive coat he could afford. I think maybe it was like nine bucks and his brothers were jealous. Then later when the brothers threw Joef-es in the pit and put the sheep blood on his coat, they lied and told the dad that a monster ate Joef-es. At the very end, they had a party and Joef-es invited everyone."

Diva Party

I'm going to post way too many pics. Sorry. I can't narrow them down. The girls got hair, makeup, and nails done and they got to make their own lip gloss to take home. Plus I had pizza and ice cream cake for them. Ty stayed and helped me clean up between activities (we'd leave the room and when we came back, he'd have all the dishes cleaned up from pizza, stuff like that). He also was in charge of the iPod so we called him the dj. He did a great job picking songs the girls loved and they all sang so loud I'm sure the patrons upstairs could hear them. It was by far the most fun, easiest party I've ever thrown. Plus the salon opened a bottle of sparkling wine so while the girls had soda, I got my drink on. One girl didn't rsvp and I didn't know if she was coming or not so since I already paid for five girls, E took her place. Also in one pic, G is blowing out a pretend candle on her cake. I forgot the candle.

Hannah Montana, eat your heart out!

Renovation Update

Despite what you see in the pictures, I'm basically doing this alone so it's taken me two weeks to get the living room painted and the flooring ripped up. This week I'm starting in on the dining room. I really want to have this done by Steve and E's birthday (4/4). Here's my "befores" - sorry they're all just old pics. I didn't bother taking any before I started in on the painting.



E wanted to help SO badly. She sanded and helped paint primer. It wasn't until I got to the actual painting that she decided it wasn't that much fun anymore.




Wiping the ceiling down to get it ready to paint:




Pulling the staples out of the padding (there were like 3,000,000 of 'em)




Scrubbing up dirt and stuck-on carpet padding:


You can see what the floor looks like without carpeting. It needs refinished. We're hoping sometime this summer...

Happy Pi Day!

S3 took a frozen pie to school for Pi day (today is 3-14, get it?). He wanted me to bake one but I just laughed at him.

He's really looking forward to Pi day in 2015. Yes I know my son is a geek. But he's a cute geek.

Links for ya:
Wikipedia's Pi Day
Official Pi Day Website
Pi Day Songs
How to Celebrate Pi Day

Coming Soon to a Living Room Near You

Bring Out Your Dead! But I'm Not Dead Yet!

Wow, talk about the plague. Between pink eye and the stomach flu, I don't think I'm ever going to get to leave this house ever again. So far E and G have been home with pink eye and the day after E went back to school from that, she came home with the stomach flu. Now Ty is home with it. Thankfully Steve came home from Missouri yesterday and I got to slip out to the library for a half an hour. I was running low on reading material.

Not much else to say here. It's been a heck of a week.

Learned Something New Today

After church I needed groceries so the kids and I quickly changed and headed out to Sam's Club. We were all in a pretty good mood; our bellies were filled with cheeseburgers and iced tea and we were ready to shop.

As we walked in the front door we saw this cool game set up called Rock Band complete with two guitars, a drum set and a microphone. Steve is in Missouri and since we didn't have to rush through shopping and we didn't have anywhere we needed to be, I gave my go-ahead to the kids to check the game set up a little closer. Ty immediately sat down at the drums, G grabbed a guitar and E gravitated toward the microphone. I cajoled S3 into picking up the second guitar telling him it would be fun.

So it seems like Ty on the drums is in control of the selections - music and etc. - so he starts trying to figure out what pad to bang on to get the result he wants (the next screen) and every time he manages to figure it out, G would push a button on her guitar and send them all back to the main screen. Rinse and repeat about five times until finally I said, "G! Do NOT TOUCH another button on that guitar until I say so."

Ty gets to the next screen (finally!) and now the instruments have to pick their level of play. Two of them choose "easy" and S3 is trying to figure out how to be a bass instead of a guitar when G pressed that button again and sent them all back to the beginning. Rinse and repeat about five more times until finally I got Ty to just push everyone through that screen and the music finally started.

Well they must have picked the hardest song ever to try to play and besides that, both the girls just stood there dumbfounded, not understanding the point of the game at all and very quickly they all four failed to perform and the game was done. All of this took about 15 minutes or so and it looked as though other people would like a chance to try to fail so I declared our time with the game to be at an end.

G and E cried and whined. Ty was just about pulling his hair out in frustration - over the game set-up, over failing at the game, and worst of all over his older brother who was having himself a FAN-tastic 13 year old pissy moment (silent mind you. It's all in the body language).

"So what did I learn today?" you may be asking. I learned why Steve always says, "No."

Totally Random

In the car on the ride home tonight, out of nowhere E says, "Wouldn't it be funny to tape a duck?"

Desperate for Help

S3 has a science fair project due next week. Of course he waited until the last possible second to work on it. His theory is: Which Wrigley's Gum Flavor Lasts The Longest?

Here's what I need help with (if you're willing). Wrigley's makes five flavors, Doublemint, Spearmint, Winterfresh, Big Red and Juicy Fruit. Can you please buy a pack of gum and chew a piece and time how long the flavor lasts? If you can talk your family into it, can you get your family to chew too? Even better would be if you'd be willing to chew all five flavors but I know that's asking a lot.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

G plus Trampoline equals

At least they were a little loose before G knocked out her sister's teeth. The dentist says it's hard to knock out a tooth that's not ready to come out anyway. I say he doesn't know my little red head. E was just happy for the money the tooth fairy brought.

Cupcakes Anyone?

G wanted a cupcake cake for her birthday party at school this year and she wanted it to look like a soccer ball. I had a hard time finding a place that would make one (yes, I was too lazy to make the kid some cupcakes) but finally I did and I ordered it for Monday morning.

Monday morning I drove to Sam's Club, walked back to the bakery, gave the girl my name and guess what? No cupcake cake. Well whatever the kid needed cupcakes for her birthday so I bought a Sam's club sized pack of 3,000,000 cupcakes. I paid, walked out to my van, buckled up and started to pull away when I suddenly realized....

.... I ordered the cake from the SuperWalMart next door.

{GULP} Happy Birthday?

Saturday was G's 9th birthday and boy was she ever excited. She talked about her birthday every day from the moment the calendar page turned to February. On the Friday before the big day the kids and I were driving to a basketball game and once again G brought up her birthday the next day.

Ty, having had enough of the birthday reminders, decided to put G in her place by saying, "Technically your birthday was nine months ago."

{Gulp} Eh, er, um, oooookaaaaay.... I guess now we're going to have a family discussion about conception.

Hi. Didja Miss Me?

Don't even ask where I've been. Lazy I guess. I just haven't blogged. I was surprised to see it's been since December 5th though. I thought I'd blogged at least once in January. I'll try to give you a quick update.

- Steve is still hard at work. They found some way to do a remote start-up with one of their factories so thank you God, he's been home these last two months and not in Korea.

- S3 is finishing up a looooong, boring basketball season. Basketball is not my favorite sport nor is he exceptionally good at it. He is athletic so he does well but it's not like watching him play soccer or baseball where he's usually one of the best players.

- Ty is a reading machine. I'd have never guessed he'd be my reader but let me just say I'm so glad we re-found the library. Does anyone know of any good youth stories about spies? Spy stories are his favorite.

- G is still playing soccer. She's finally on a team of girls her own age (rather than one and two years older!) and she's regaining her confidence. It's good to see. She's growing her hair back out so it's kinda scraggly right now but it grows fast.

- E cut her hair for LoL also (I don't think I ever told you guys that) and at first I was upset we'd cut off all her beautiful curls but it's so cute, it's ok. She's doing great in kindergarten and all my worries about her motion sickness and the school bus seem to be for naught, thank goodness.

- I am hunting for a new job. I've been working at the facility for 2.5 years now and I'm getting worn out. I wanted to be able to help and to give care and I feel like I'm so rushed and stretched now that I barely have time to do the minimum for my residents. I'm now looking for home health. I think I'll like the one-on-one much better and I'm hoping to time it right that I'll still be able to study and watch the kids' sports games.

I think that's about it. It's good to be back :)