Friday, February 29, 2008

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.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

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."

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Totally Random



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

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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!!!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

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.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

{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.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

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 :)

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Sorry to interrupt the vacation post but I have important and very exciting news. I just received a phone call from Millersville University. They have accepted me into their Pre-Medicine program.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Disney In November (days 3 and 4)

I keep trying to make this quick but it's hard because we do so much every day. Day three we went to Disney/MGM and had a blast. They even talked me into going on Rockin' Rollercoaster, which if you know me at all, you'll know I'm terrified of thrill rides. However I found to my surprise that I really, really enjoyed it. In fact one of these days we're here we are going to finish the stuff we missed at MGM and I'm going to ride it again.



Also for any of you who wonder why there are so many pics of the girls and not as many of the boys I'll tell you, it boils down to this: the boys are big enough that they want to do their thing and their thing does not include posing for their mama.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Disney In November (days 1 and 2)

Yes, we're in Disney again. This time on our dime. We drove down to Florida on Turkey day, spent the night in Daytona Beach and then scooted on over to Disney. The ride wasn't bad at all. The kids kept pretty entertained and there was minimal traffic.

Here's where we stayed in Daytona. It was literally right on the beach.



MD and I went for a walk first thing in the morning. Her daughter A went jogging and then S3 and his bud C went for a swim in their shorts. The air was cool but the water was very warm.







We went to Epcot around lunch time and I think we managed to do all the rides in one half of the park. My feet sure think we did anyway.

Finding Nemo



Mickey plays peek-a-boo with Ty at the Garden Grill.





Today we headed to the Magic Kingdom where we rode nearly every ride there. Seriously. We kept hitting the lines just right so while we had to wait, it was never too long. E fell asleep on the bus ride back to the hotel. Random pics from today:









When we rode "It's a Small World" I tried to get a quick picture of Steve and the girls. Apparently Steve had other plans because it took us three tries before he stopped fooling around long enough to get a nice pic.







Ok, last picture for tonight; I'm beat. Sorry the quality is bad. It's from my phone. I think I'll probably be back to blog again on Monday. Good night!!!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Happy Veteran's Day


Thank you to all who have served. From my family:

BIL Jer, Army
Pop, Army (Vietnam)
Gramps, Navy (WW2, Pacific)
Grandpop, Army (WW2, Europe)
Steve's Papaw, Army (Korea)


My dad
Gramps

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Future Engineer

Ty made this while he was waiting for the bus this morning. Right now only it's arms move but he told me his next goal is to get it's jaw to be mobile.



Monday, October 22, 2007

Friday, October 19, 2007

Oops, He Did It Again


Remember when Ty was in first grade and he went camping with his grandparents? He fell off that piece of playground equipment and broke his left arm. My FIL captured it all on his camera.

Well as you may have guessed by the title of this post, he did it again. Similar piece of playground equipment but this time it was his right arm. Luckily for us they casted it very well and he's still able to write. And I paid the little bit extra to have the waterproof Gore-Tex in there this time so at least the five weeks of cast time won't be as painful as the last time.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Enough Already!

Look, wasn't it enough that my BABY went to school? Did she have to go and lose teeth too??? What is with all this growing up stuff? A mom can only take so much here.

First one came out...


Then a second one. Now a third is loose.


"Mom, enough with the mouth pictures already."

Thursday, September 13, 2007

First Day of School

Forgive me, I not only haven't been around much but I also forgot to post pics from the first day of school.


Friday, August 31, 2007

Hot Rod Mama

S3 has a plan. He is saving whatever money he makes babysitting for me and mowing grass and his birthday, Christmas and report card money and he is going to buy a car. Yes, my thirteen year old is already looking for a car. He figures he's got almost enough to buy an old junker and over the next three or four years slowly get it working and looking nice so that by the time he drives, he'll have a really nice car. I think it's a great idea for lots of reasons but I won't get into that because that's not what this post is about.

Yesterday he and I were daydreaming about his car. Sometimes we daydream about the make and model but yesterday we were discussing colors. I told him I thought he aught to paint his car a nice candy-apple red with black racing stripes. He said he didn't want a red car and when I asked him why he said, "Because the police look for red cars Mom."

I decided to tease him a little so I said, "Are you planning on breaking the law?"

He said, "No."

I said, "Then it shouldn't matter if you have a red car. They can look at your red car all they want as long as you're not doing anything wrong."

He looked at me and said, "Yeah, but what if you're driving it?"

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Proud Mama Moment

I think it was before school started last year when Steve took G to get her back -to -school hair cut and she saw a young girl getting her hair cut off to donate to Locks of Love. Since that day, G has told me she wanted to grow her hair long in order to also be able to donate her hair. I thought that was so touching and I was amazed by her generous heart so I told her I would start to grow my hair and donate it along with her. Yesterday we went to the hairdresser and had them cut away ten inches of ponytail on both of us.





Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Two Quick Stories

I gotta run to a doctor's appointment in a minute but I have to tell you these two quick stories first.

Last night S3 had left for puppet practice (VBS this week at our church), the girls were at the table doing crafts and Ty was supposed to be doing some dishes in the kitchen. I was reading a book. At some point a hissing noise pierced my concentration on the book but it sounded to me like Ty was playing with the sink hose or something and I didn't think much of it. A few moments later G said, "What is that?!?" which completely pierced my concentration so I looked up. Oddly enough there was a flashing light accompanying the hissing noise in the kitchen. The girls and I went to investigate and found Ty quickly throwing a cup of water on something on the other side of the bar.

I looked down and there was a tiny blackened plastic cup and a huge puddle of water. I looked at Ty and said, "Ty did you set off a firework in my kitchen?"

Now mind you, the smoke in the kitchen is so thick I can hardly see him. The smell was overwhelming. There was a blackened cup sitting in a puddle of water on the counter and do you know what that child said to me?

"Sorta."

He sorta set off fireworks in my kitchen. Sorta.

-------------------------

Story two:
Last night after VBS the boys were really wound up so they were wrestling on my living room floor while E danced around them, giggling. At one point S3 had pinned Ty down and he called to E, "Give him a wedgie! Give him a wedgie!"

E turns to S3 and in a disgusted voice says, "Ewwww! I'm not touching his underwear!!!"