Another Week Gone By

I honestly cannot believe what a bad blogger I have been. But life has been chaotic around here. I used to be a scrapbooker (ha ha) and I could never understand why these women who had older children were not caught up on the pages? Why did they just not take the time? Now I fully understand. With two kids in sports, a part-time job, awana and the basic household chores, I have no time for anything extra. I don't even pick up my camera anymore, let alone try to improve my photography skills. My days are packed with working, cooking, laundry, homework, awana memorization and then off to bed.

I thought I had this sytem down pat, but then I caught the dreaded head cold and the whole thing went off-line. I still have not caught up. At the beginning of the work life I would tell myself that if it did not get done then, it would never get done and suddenly my life was organized and my house looked great. But once I got sick, it was all hands "off" deck and nothing got done. So now I find myself knee deep in the "pick" up phase of house work, where I am finally digging out from under the pile of "stuff" that did not get done before. Then I can finally get to the real cleaning.

I am hoping that this is the last week of being gone every night of the week and life can be a little more normal for a couple of weeks, until basketball starts. Today is especially stressful since I have a little one who now wants to be indy for halloween, a class party to finish for tomorrow, work, buy more stuff for said party, grocery shop, take children to upward evaluations and fix dinner! But it will all get done and life will be back to normal on saturday.

The Bald Song

Today was our jogathon recognition assembly and boy it was crazy. As a school our goal was to raise more than we ever had before, which was $31k and then we would get shave our music teacher's head!!!! The man had some seriously long hair. Well they completed over achieved their goal as a school (by $3k)and so today the shaving was done. Since I am working in a fifth grade classroom as well as my health job, I got to participate from the working side....rather than the pta side. It was great. Yesterday our classroom wrote a song to sing to the school in honor of the occasion. I would like to share that song...........think brady bunch tune:

Here's the story of a man named jason

who agreed to shave his head

if we raised money

it was touch and go

for a little while

the longest hair in school

till the one day when you're head met the razor

we knew that it was time for it to go

that this hair, must somehow for a wig

and that's the way it went to locks of love

the locks of love.................bald man

the locks of love..................bald man

that's the way you became a bald man!!!

It really was a ton of fun. I love my job. just thought i would share.

When In Fall...........enjoy the flavors

I tried this out today. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/10/delicious-nutritious-pumpkin-butter/

YUM! I have to say that it truly is a little slice of heaven, with the creamy goodness and the yummy pumpkin flavor. I am not sure that I would call it nutritious, with a cup of powdered sugar in there, but it really is fabulous. When we went to the pumpkin patch last weekend they had a little display of pumpkin pie pumpkins....I have been waiting all week to make this. It is super easy to do and well worth the wait. I am totally addicted to Pioneer Woman cooking and I cannot wait until her cookbook comes out. I make some changes to the recipes and try to make them a little more low fat or healthier for our family....but when it comes down to it, it is all about the butter.

Yahooooooo

I filled up my tank today and it only cost me $45!!!! It has been so long, it felt like a huge blessing to see that number on the pump. It made my day. just thought I would share.

My New Man

Some might say that I have seen some action these last two weeks. My man has not been faithful to me and I have replaced him 4 times now. Who needs an ungrateful, unfaithful, unworking "man" when I can upgrade at any given time. All's it takes is a simple phone call and suddenly my new "man" arrives at my doorstep, fully loaded and ready to go. Until I overwork him and he gives out on me, then it is time to call in the newer model.

Apparently I am too much for these "men" and they have to go away and rest and be restored to proper working order. he he. I on the other hand am still excited and ready for the challenge. Just give me 30 minutes or maybe an hour or two with the new one and it is broke in and ready to go. But I am just getting started. I want to push the buttons and be in control. I want to be able to pause or say go whenever I want. I want to be able to record it and watch it over and over again. wow is it getting hot in here? ha ha ha.

okay, okay enough with the dirty dvr talk........i am a mom that has been at home for two days with a sick child. i need to work again, i need human interaction, i need a working dvr!!!! This is what happens when you take a woman who is now working, then has to stay at home and finally has time to blog. The imagination goes wild!!!!

The Great Divide

Mom, take some pictures of this. this is so fun. i am awesome. i can jump across a grand canyon and still land on my feet. i was getting really bored at the pumpkin patch, until i discovered this. i really wanted to go home and log onto the computer and watch star wars clone wars, but i think i could stay here and do this for a while. I might just have a little superman in me, i mean come on........who can jump a canyon like this without getting hurt. no one but me. and the most important part of jumping is to make sure that you have your face and your hands positioned in just the right "superjump" way. face: must always have mouth open, like a fake a scream, no serious looks are allowed. hands: must be pumped and ready to catch yourself, just in case a little stumble happens (but since we have established I am a superhero, that will never happen, they just look really cool like that). i rule the universe!

Pumpkin Patch

Today was such a gorgeous day that we decided to head to our favorite patch and enjoy the sunshine and fall decorations. It was well worth the cost and everyone had a good time, despite the current cold/flu that has invaded our home. The kids were super pumped to go through the dark hay maze with their daddy, they even brought their headlamps, but once we found out it could take up to four hours to find your way out we decided to skip ahead to the zip line instead. Noah was totally enamored with the haybale pirate ship and sydnie loved the swings. Once we had all of the fun out of our systems we decided to head over for the apple juice demonstration and a couple of bags of fresh homemade apple donuts. YUM! Once we had consumed our weight in the sugary goodness we decided it was time for the pumpkin picking out experience. Now let me just say as a mom who has done this thing before, it is so much fun when they are little. This year, they basically walked up to the first pumpkins that they spied and that was it. No muss, no
fuss, no fun. Plus my camera battery died about half way through the day. I was not very well prepared. But the experience, the memories is all worth it. I know that when they are older they will remember their patch experiences and look back on them with fondness. I think now that they are a little older, the real fun comes in the pumpkin carving! Something we have not been very good at around here. I think this year we will have to "carve" out the time to make some spectacular creations.

Weekend Sports

There she is..........the next Gabby Reece. Well maybe in a few years. She is loving volleyball and enjoying the competitive edge. We just need to conquer the fear of the ball hitting anywhere on her body. I remember that pain that can only come from hitting a volleyball over and over and over....the wrists are a killer. It has been a great experience so far and after their second game they are starting to pull together as a team. They were late in the game getting a coach, so they are a little behind, plus our team consists of newcomers to the game. I expect by the last game we will be able to call it and get some good volleys in there.

And then there is football. Love the fresh air, the touchdowns and my son who only has the attention span to be the hiker! Once that ball is hiked, he tends to just stand there until he hears the word run!!! Then he goes after someone who does not have the ball and tries to pull their flag. ha ha ha. Hopefully next year, he will have more fun with it and really enjoy it. If you ask him, he loves football, his favorite sport. I never have to fight with him to get him out the door, he loves wearing his jersey and a friend reminded me that at the very least he is being active and getting exercise! I am super glad that Thad is coaching, gives me a bit of a break so that I don't "have" to go to all the practices!

Next up..............Upward Basketball

OME

Twilight HD Exclusive Trailer



Oh My Edward.

this trailer is soooooooooooooo much better than the last couple. I am super excited for the movie now! Just wanted to share on this late friday afternoon.

Feeling Mellow Yellow

Hello out there world! I am here to Inspire you! and a little bit of helping too. I am a person in the yellow, someone who is an extrovert, tends more towards feelings and intuition. Apparently I cannot make a thoughtful decision or sense that I am in danger, because I a yellow. (according to Discovery Personal Profile)

I will become impatient with routine or repetition. I will not follow through to completion a task. HUH? I do not like to be bored. I get home from work and I cannot sit down, I have to be doing something. I really like to be occupied, but I can sit and work on something if it holds my interest for a long enouch time?

Now here is my question, based on my whole personality profile.........is it possible that I have adult onset ADD? I really do not like to be doing the same thing over and over again. I need something to attract my attention and have variety. But sometimes it is hard to focus. If I am at work and there is nothing to do, I literally start going crazy. give me something, anything to keep me occupied.

So do you ever have those ADD moments? Or is it just stay-at-home-mom-who-is-transitioning-back-to-a-working-mom moments? Have you ever taken a personality profile, what did yours say? I have taken spiritual gifts and quite a while ago taken a personality one. But now that I am older and more cemented in who I am and know myself better, I was able to predict the outcome. I could see all of these things and as my friend was telling me the finer nuances of my personality in my mind I was relating it all back to an experience in my life.

Some Fun

I just needed a good laugh today and this did it for me! you gotta love star wars though or just really hate oprah!!!

Funny Story

This morning the kids and I headed down to church, now let me say that in my present UTI condition I would not normally go to church, considering how many times I would likely have to get up and well............go! But this morning we were voting on our new pastor, must go to church today. As we were picking out our spot, which if you are baptist you know that that means you sit in the same spot every week. ha ha. I told my dearest husband that we should probably sit in the back, once again considering my nether regions would need to be up quite often! But instead we sat smack dab in the front of the church. As I predicted I got up about 3 times in the course of the hour, had to walk the walk of shame back to the back of the sanctuary to go "visit" the ladies room. Each time I got up, I wondered, do they know I have an infection, do they just think I cannot hold it, do they think I am being paged, part of the sound crew...........hopefully no one notices!!! After church I did some shopping and was just stepping in the dressing room to try on some stuff when the phone rang, it was Thad calling to tell me that one of the older deacons approached him after church today to ask if he and I were having problems? "I noticed your wife getting up quite often during the service and wanted to make sure that it was not maritial issues?" hahahahahahahahaha. As a woman I can honestly say that I wish it had been that and not the dreaded nether regions affliction!!!! I am still giggling over that observation.

Updates

So the big party was a good success! Thad did not really know that we were having a party, but he had his suspicions. The rain held off and we were able to sit outside for the tailgate party and as we were sitting out there, could not help but think it was a little white trash.......but there were no trailers around!!! ha ha.

Yesterday was jogathon at our school and it did rain quite a bit, but for most of the kids the rain held off. I had to run the track 4 times yesterday, once with staff, once with my fifth graders, once with my DLC kid and once with Noah! It was a long day. For the first time since my kids started at their school, I was not able to stand out there and take pix of them while they were running. So I was a little bummed about that, but it is all good.

Today I woke up this morning at 5AM!!!! with a nice little bladder infection. I have drank about 40 oz of cranberry juice so far today and it seems to be working. Thank goodness.

A friend stopped over and gave me my personality test and it was pretty much what I thought. But still fun to hear that what I think about myself is pretty spot on. Even my weaknesses. ha ha.

We also had a football game and sydnie's first volleyball game! It was great. There were some real volley's in there, it was pretty fun to watch!

And now I am going to go drink some more cranberry juice and go lay down. hopefully kick this infection before it gets to big!

Today is the Day

Today we get our party on and celebrate Thad's bday. Yesterday cable finally decided to show up, after I had waited for over 3 hours! So we headed out to awana and made sure that we hid the evidence from Thad. Made sure that all the lights were off, so he would not notice the dvr sitting in the front room. Of course when he tucked noah into bed last night he was talking to him about practice and noah kept insisting that he was not going to practice, because it was daddy's bday!!!! ha ha. I went straight to our room to make sure that the cable was working correctly and thad comes in and asks why I got cable installed? Now let me clarify that we had talked about hooking it up, but I just went ahead and did it.......not something I would normally do without talking to him first! I told him that it was so he could be at home watching sports, rather than at his moms!!! So I am pretty sure that the cat is out of the bag, but we will have fun anyway. Hopefully it does not rain until we have tailgated!

Busy Week

This week is thad's bday and we are planning on suprising him with a tailgate party on thursday night! It is suppose to rain at this point, bummer. I am having cable installed on wednesday so that we can watch the OSU game that night too. Making pulled bbq beef sammys with these little goodies on the side http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2008/02/super-bowl-funday.html

Sydnie found those cute little treats on her favorite website! So that is on our list to do tonight as well as pta meeting and football practice! Hopefully he won't find out about his party, but maybe he secretly reads this blog and does not tell me!

I have still not found my groove with blogging and working. Most days I am so busy when I get home trying to complete my other chores that blogging is the last thing on my mind. Now that I will have a dvr though, I can pause my tv and come post really quick!!! he he.

THE GIANT KILLERS!!!!!

27-21

27-21

27-21

Need I say more? Last night was a phenom game. Our boys really pulled it out, thanks in no part to a healthy dose of the Jman!!! Cannot wait to see that new ranking on espn, without usc at the top!!!! GO BEAVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know ,I know

It has been a whole week since I posted, but I am a working mom now.........haha. So I just had a little story to share with you all this evening. As the kids and I were sitting around the breakfast table this morning, they were both studying their awana verses for tonight. Syd is gung ho, cannot wait to finish her book in one fell swoop. Where as noah is already telling me that he is not going to go to awana next year, maybe he will finish sparks, but not t&t. So syd was telling me that she could do 6 sections in one night and going on and on about it, when suddenly noah decides that two sections are not good enough for him, he now wants to finish an entire "chapter" in one night. He is only competetive with her! I swear if syd played on a sports team with him, he would be the best player out there, just to one up her. Cracks me up. Just a quick story, until later.

increased

So tomorrow is the day that I increase my hours at work from 2 hours a day to 4 hours a day. I have posted before that my dream job would be a teachers assistant in our school system and I had been accepted to sub this year, before I was hired to my current job. But now that reality is coming true. Last friday as I was still on my coffee caffeine high the principal caught me in the hall and asked if I would be interested in tacking on 2 more hours to become an assistant. I of course said yes immediately and did not ask a single question....but floated home on a haze of acceptance and wow, I must be doing something right. So this morning he told me that he wanted me to start tomorrow and to talk to the teacher that I would be working with to figure out the hours I need to be there. So tomorrow it is! I love who I am going to be working with, but I will not lie that I am a little apprehensive............something new always does that to me. My hours are going to be so weird because I have to work around my existing job, but some morning I will have time to go get a coffee or run to target. Others we will have to get to school early so that I can start when the bell rings. So pray for the kids and I as we make this new transition. Hopefully not too much stress. That means I have to have breakfast eaten before I take them to school!!! ha ha.

OH NO!!!!

Crescent lake has been evacuated and is threatened with wildfires! This is our beloved lake, so many memories and good times. I went to bed with a sad heart last night after I heard about the fires. I cannot lose this place. This lake where I grew up going every summer and spent so many hours swimming and climbing China Hill. The place where one summer my brother and I got ride in the camper, instead of the cab of the truck, down the hill to the grocery store! The place where I caught my first fish, lost a tooth and got a hook in my finger all in the same day. The place where my kids now go to experience crystal clear water, biking, the lodge and good, good memories. My prayer is that the fire does not touch this lake, that the tree lines remain, the lodge is still there and that the beautiful pumice beach is still white and crystal clear! My heart is still sad this morning as I looked thru all of our camping pix for the last several years...thought i would post a few of what this lake has been to us. It is like I am saying goodbye to a dear friend, well hopefully not goodbye, just take care.......we love you.

Celebrate

Today was a national holiday for my daughter..........can anyone out there take a guess why? In order to celebrate the holiday she had to wear her special shirt, call her bff in the morning to arrange to wear the special shirts and they had a whole thing at recess planned! So I fed into the madness of the national holiday and make cupcakes, just 4, and brought them to her at lunch time to share with between the 4 friends. Can u guess yet? The cupcakes spelled out the national holiday on them? Anyone?

Happy Birthday Nick Jonas!!! I know I should not feed the beast by making n.i.c.k. cupcakes, but it was the cutest thing ever!!! They all wore their JB shirts and ate their cupcakes and played nick games on the playground. So for one day, Sydnie pretended that she met her favorite singer and shared a cupcake with him (she even wanted me to make sugar free cupcakes because he is diabetic)!!!