Random...

I saw a line that said this, and it just made me laugh. It seems to fit my mood today. Today was one of those 'if it can go wrong it will go wrong' kind of days. So long Sunday..... sayonara. Adios. Buh bye.

On a better note: It's the last three days of school this week! Yay!

You can also tell by the lunch calendar for the next few days. Like they are trying to clean out the fridge because the next few days are crap. Tomorrow is rib sandwich or uncrustable. Yuck.

I told all of the kids just to make sure if they wanted me to pack lunch for tomorrow and Matthew says, "Oh, it sounds like I'll have to sit at the peanut free table tomorrow." Poor guy. He says he does this on days where one of his friends brings a PB&J. I guess it doesn't bother him much, but it just seems so strange to me. At least he's responsible about it. An ambulance ride to the hospital because of anaphylactic shock will do that to you though. LOL.

In fact, I got a call from the school nurse last week that he was in the office because his hand was white and covered with hives. He may have touched something that had peanut residue on it. But he was fine. The nurse kept him for awhile and kept his epi-pen out just in case.

Other good news this week is that my mom is coming out to visit, and Mike should be home by the week. :)

air conditioning & air fresheners

Piper did this last year and I thought it was both smart and funny. She likes to lay over the air conditioning vent to keep herself cool. Sometimes she'll let the air blow on her face, and other times she'll plop her tummy right over it and lay like she is above. The thing that I thought was funny this year is that for about a week before it was really hot enough to turn the a/c on, she'd lay there like she was waiting for the cool air to come. I guess a dog gets hotter before people... that fur and all you know. So finally the a/c has had to come on and she has her favorite spot in the whole house back.

I left the boys for about 5 minutes while I went to the store on the corner to get a bag of ice. I come back in the house and smell the most wonderful smell. Mmmm. What is that??? Somebody has been baking? - Kind of. Trevor was trying to use the microwave timer and instead cooked my new bag of sourdough bread that I brought home from the store today. My bread drawer was full, so I just stuck it in the microwave to store it. He's since had a lesson in how to work the timer on the microwave, but the plastic bag of steamed sourdough made my house smell really good. Now I'm really hungry!

This weekend was loooong and quiet. It was perfect. We just hung around the house, and the kids would play with friends every now and then. This photo was another surprise on my card, but I don't know which of the boys took it. I do think it's funny to see Megan hanging out on the couch playing her DS which she did for most of the weekend, and the pirate ship, castle and pokemon sitting on the side table. Those have to be the best toys that have been played with forever. Actually, the castle belonged to my sister's boys... one of whom is driving now and the other that just graduated from high school... so that castle has been loved for years. I love toys like that.

We also got two of the old style pirate ships from them too. So now we actually have FOUR pirate ships. It's funny watching the boys set them up and shoot each other.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

This is what happens when Trevor has my camera and takes pictures. I find evidence when I put the card in to load my own pictures. I know it was him because there were also pictures of various turtle related items. Busted. But hey, this kind of goes with the theme of the weekend with the flag out front.

Of course, Matthew in his shirt. I wash that thing every single night. I hope that the red stays for a long time! He really does own more than one shirt... but he's still in his Cincinnati Reds phase.

Are we the only ones staying home for the weekend? Today I took the kids to see Race To Witch Mountain. (Which was really good btw, and man I'd love to be able to slam two people's heads at the same time into the hood of a taxi like The Rock. That would be a sweet skill to have.) It was at the $1 theater. Somehow this was one of those kid movies that managed to sneak by us without seeing it while it was in the regular theater. The price was even better!

(shhh.... Lisa, if you click on that link you get a little Dwayne eyeful.)

Anyway.... I'm still in the habit of getting to the theater at least 30 minutes before the movie starts which really wasn't necessary today. When I pulled up there were five cars in the parking lot at 1:00 which the girl who sold tickets said were employee cars. I was the first person to be there today. So my plan of getting there early to have time to stand in the concession line was kind of for nothing. It took all of 5 minutes.

More people came in finally, but I swear everybody was gone for the weekend or at the grocery store. (where it WAS a zoo.)

I rocked dinner tonight. I made a honey/orange juice/ baja spice marinade and grilled chicken. My kids think I'm awesome for it. Plus salad and fruit salad. I love summer fruit and we have it with every single meal. At least I felt like I was out grilling with the rest of the world since I think all of my neighbors were standing on their decks grilling too. We all kind of raised our BBQ tongs at each other to say hey. Kentucky backyard camaraderie.

Other than that I am incredibly boring. Oh, but I just had to tell Megan to stop yelling at her youngest brother. She doesn't have an indoor voice and especially when she's mad. Which makes it to where I can't be the one to tell Matthew to stop whatever he's doing (probably just looked in her direction I'm sure!) because I can't top the octave she has. So finally I yell loud enough to tell her to stop and that her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Then silence. Then a little voice from upstairs (Matthew) "Um mommy? What's a chalkboard?" Are you kidding? Another phrase that time has managed to screw up. Now they have dry erase boards, not chalk boards. I also realized how archaic I really am when not too long ago I said somebody sounded like a broken record. "What's a record?" Same with me saying, "OH U2 has a new album!"

"What's an album?" Then I told Megan to grab her walkman one time to go for a walk. "What's a walkman?"

Sigh. Why even try anymore? I'm getting old.

Well if this post didn't end up going all over the place. I hope everybody has a happy and safe weekend!

My brain hurts. I haven't scrapped ANYTHING in forever. The other day I was looking through photos looking for something and I realized that I really have a lot of things I can work with. The excuse of not having any photos isn't going to work. I've just been tired, and unfortunately scrapping has had to take a bit of a back seat. Hopefully doing this one will get me motivated again. The journaling isn't wonderful, but I find that I get myself hung up on stupid things. Instead I just need to write stuff down.

The kids' brains are officially checked out of school right now too. We're down to 10 more days until summer vacation. Mostly I think that it is crazy that we will have been here for a year early next month!

Not much going on here. I have been told on three separate occasions today that I am the *best mom in the world.* Ok, one said that I was the best in the UNIVERSE even. You can't get enough of that when you feel like an old workhorse who has been doing this all on her own for over a month now and you know you've had some less than stellar moments. But when they say that over simple things, it makes it all worth it.

We made cookies today. I should rephrase that - I made cookies while the others helped by licking the bowl and eating cookies. The weather has been phenominal today. We had an awesome thunderstorm around 5:00 this morning that woke me up. It felt so good to wake and realize that it was Saturday. For the 60 seconds I probably remained awake I enjoyed the sound of the rain outside.

Then later in the afternoon we had hollywood rain. The kind that looks like somebody turned it on... straight down and hard. Then *poof* in less than 30 minutes the sun and blue sky were out and everybody is outside playing again. The windows have been open and I can smell fresh cut grass from everybody out doing yards today. Which reminds me that I have to do mine tomorrow. It's a perfect spring day and I love every minute of it.

Shhhh.... the frogs are sleeping. - I LOVE my frogs. I'm sure everybody who knows me knows this. LOL. Mike even gets a weekly update on them. I love when they are all sleeping. They hang out in the plant with their little noses sticking out of the water. They say, "HI Mike! We miss you. Come home soon!"

For some reason the kids have a three day weekend. I'm not sure why, according to the lunch calendar on the refrigerator they have next monday off for memorial day, but I have no clue why they do this week. I'm hoping to go for a little hike with them tomorrow. I think all of our rain is gone for awhile.

That's it. We are amazingly boring.

I found the pictures I took the other day. You know how some people call India for technical support? I called Yemen and got the step by step of where my photos were. :)

Today was such a great day. One of those days where the weather is just incredibly awesome you can't believe you actually live here. I thought fall was great.... man, I ADORE spring.

I went to middle school orientation today. Talk about realizing how big the kids are getting. I'm going to have a middle school child in less than a month.

Nothing going on here, but I wanted to post these for the out of state and country family.

Happy Mother's Day!

Well crap. When the kids asked me what I wanted for Mother's day I told them that I wanted three cooperative children that would let me get pictures of them all together without any funny business. No goofy smiles, no bunny ears behind heads... nothing.

And I did. We went to a neighborhood near here, found a cool red bridge and a paved trail through a little forest, and took more at my house while the kids were playing out in the front yard.

But guess what? I got too crazy with my deleting when I was going through to pick out the bad photos. Now, the photos are still on my card in the camera, so I'm not in a panic yet. I can't figure out how to tell the computer that they need to be downloaded again. Seems it knows somehow. If I take new pictures on this same date, they will show up, but not my other ones. Dang.

I guess I should have told my computer that all I wanted for mother's day was some pictures... without any funny business. Now I have to figure this out on my own or wait for my technical help to come home.

Otherwise today was a nice day. It was quiet, but the weather was so nice after a week of rain so we were out during most of it. I grilled some pork chops out on the deck for dinner, and now I plan on going out and seeding and feeding my yard. My new obsession is fighting dandelions and making my lawn look like a carpet of green. I look like the obsessive guys in the Scott's commercials.

So oooh and ahhh at my fabulous mother's day photos. ;) Aren't they wonderful?

Somtimes you have to grab those moments when you can...

This was yesterday when the boys were sitting out on the front steps waiting for the bus. I love the crispy morning boy hair, just after gel and hairspray, but before the day of running around messes it all up.

They really do get along more than not. But right now they are making me laugh. Matthew didn't want to put away the wii even though he was the last one playing with it. His argument was that Trevor was the first to get it out in the morning. I tell him he has to put it away since he was the last to play it. That's just the way it goes.

So he says, "FINE. But Trevor has to put away the chair." (This chair only needs to be rolled back maybe 3 feet against the wall. It's not like they have to heave it upstairs or anything.)

So Trevor is saying, "Fine Mr. Grumpy pants. Would you like some grumpy fries with that? You know, instead of the ones that look like little smilie faces, but yours could be with little grumpy frownie faces...."

But see? While it took me a minute to write that they are best of friends again.

SUPERfan.

Ugh, this is the smile I get when I ask to see his teeth for once. He's such a serious picture taker.

This is THE shirt. I told Mike I had bought it for him and he wanted to see a picture. Matthew told me that he is going to grow up to be a professional Reds Superfan. He has a hat, and wants to wear it and the shirt to a game when Mike comes home. He also wants to put a C on each buttcheek so he says, which will be covered by his Reds underwear and his Reds pants. I'm not sure what made him decide that he loves them so much, but this kid does. He comments on anybody wearing any Reds anything and makes a big deal when we drive by the Great American Ballpark.

This shirt is worn every time it is clean. And lets just say that I pretty much do a load of laundry every day, so it is well loved. Who knew?

** observations from today **

speaking of Cincinnati... today I went to Costco and some other shopping across the river. My sense of smell has always been intense. I think all of my memories have some sort of smell that I remember right along with them. I think my earliest is when I was little... I don't even know how old I was but I remember living in Florida and my dad was putting in a brick sidewalk near our front door. I can still smell it. Anytime since then... when I smell wet cement it takes me right back.

So I was realizing on my way through the city on the interstate the different smells. There are so many factories along the way, and the weird thing is, each mile you pass kind of has it's own smell. Some days you can smell soap from the St. Bernard Soap Co. Some days you smell bacon when John Morrell is cooking. Or another factory where they make TV dinners and you can smell the food. Today was Fruit Loop day. There's a General Mills factory and it hit me. It smelled so good. I swear it was Fruit Loops.

Derby day!

Well one cool thing living here is that a lot seems to revolve around the derby in the way of parties like superbowl parties, carnivals, etc. Another is that the kids learned a little bit about the derby and the history of it in school this week. They are getting ready for a week full of end of year KCTS tests next week, (AIMS in AZ) so today they had some down time to talk about other things like this weekends' Kentucky Derby.

Matthew's class came up with horses that they named and colored racing silks in the colors that they wanted. You'll never guess the name of Matthew's horse. Typical boy. Typical Matthew. His fictitious horse is named "Hoof hearted." Say it like he does as he announces his horse "AND Hoof hearted (sounds like who farted if you say it fast enough) comes around the corner!!" He has been laughing about this allll day. - OK, and I have too. It's pretty funny.