Parade

A.K.A walking through the halls at school drenched in sweat. She may be hot, but she's having the time of her life. Needless to say, none of the pre-schoolers wanted to be at my pumpkin toss booth. They all wanted Katie's sugar table. I mean snack table.

It's going to take a lot of Halloween candy to get me out the door tonight. Sleeping sounds so good right now. Remember when this night was like the highlight of the year when you were a kid? I'm sure I'll perk up soon......just point me to the chocolate.

Gathering 'candy' (leaves from the backyard) for the past hour. I think they may be onto something.

Now for my first song........

This goes out to you, Dad. I call it 'the haircut.'

I feel a little demented that I want to introduce Raegan to the joys of coffee first thing in the morning. Every morning she tells me from the second she gets up to the second that she goes to school that she is SOOOO sleepy. Seriously, if I got 10 hours of sleep I would run a marathon when I got out of bed. So, I guess I'll have to wait a couple of years on the coffee thing. Can you put caffeine in milk?

One of those Moms

I gave my son a chili bowl haircut. Maybe it was the early morning sunshine that was bouncing off of his head in the garage this morning, but I have come to the realization that I gave Greyson the worst haircut ever. Erick was trying not to hurt my feelings when he said, "Do you think you cut a lot off the other day?" We are both laughing so hard because he looks like one of his second cousins that stayed a little too long with Grandma this summer. Came to town with an expensive professional haircut, left with thick, thick hair with outline of a bowl in his hair. So bad.

The choppy chili bowl

Undoing the damage. Necessary helpers: contraband cell phone, dum dum sucker, and cordless house phone.


If only he were this compliant at church.

A radiant Ariel and good friend G

A skeptical Sebastian

A happy clown


Very sore from the hamster dance Saturday. Very tired from crazy children that didn't sleep well last night after party at church. I vaguely remember Erick saying in the middle of the night (after the 4th trip to Greyson's room) "No more halloween candy - ever!" It was nuts.

Ariel and Sebastian had a good time, though.

Birthday and hamster dance

Turning 30 was hard. 31 is a walk in the park. Erick is out of town today, but was sure to give me my birthday present days early. A gorgeous buffet from an antiques store that we love. It's replacing the old moth balled-scented one that I affectionately called "Old Yeller." It's a long story, but it's time in this house was short lived. Welcome, new buffet!

Yesterday Raegan and I were sharing a sweet moment at Starbucks after school. I told her my birthday was tomorrow, and asked her how old she thought I was going to be. Instantly, she guessed 13. I thought to myself...hmmm...if I just reversed the numbers. Anyways, I told her the actual number, and she said "That's a lot!"

We are having a lazy morning lounging in our pajamas. Since I'm not about to put a picture of myself on here, I will show you the best presents of all.

My own homemade birthday cake

Loading dry cereal into a gift bag. I'll take it.

This little gem we found this morning. We have burned 1, 637, 756 calories dancing to this thing. Easy dance version above. Hard core give yourself a pulled leg muscle and realize you're 31 version below.

That's my baby

Erick playing with Mike Huckabee. It doesn't get much better than that! I was hoping for a shot of both of them together, but I have to settle for this. I'm no judge of guitar playing, but this guy is an amazing speaker. And my husband's not too shabby on the drums if I say so myself.

I stayed up way too late last night doing absolutely nothing. How I wish I could turn myself into a morning person and just wake up at the crack of dawn to have my quiet time. I just can't seem to do it. Where this is going I don't really know....just needed to share that with you.

My Dad is quickly learning the blogging ropes, and has figured out how to get readers. (Not just readers, but readers that comment.) Have a giveaway! (Hmmm...now I'm thinking.) He's going to be giving away custom personalized golf putters that he makes. If you don't golf, at least give your husband or wife a chance at owning one of these babies. These putters are amazing. I knew he had something going when I was a kid when one was given to Bob Barker and he actually used it for years on his putting game on The Price is Right. I was the most famous girl at every slumber party (for a fleeting moment). Put him on your blog list, and every now and then, go over there and let him know you were there. If you knew the joy this brings him, you wouldn't be able to stop yourself. :) For sure read the post before his most recent one about a robbery gone wrong. I still have nightmares about this, since I was in the backseat while my Dad was chasing this guy. You're crazy, Dad. Here's his link.

And, to finish this post, I will leave two picture of the most centered and balanced kids I know. Since their Father has insisted on playing all sorts of weird balancing games since the second they came out of my womb, they have developed their own weird gymnastic skills. Some of my friends (Karyn) have wrestling night. Around here, we have 'feet games' and 'balance my body on one hand, Dad!' games. Grandmas and old ladies love them. (ha) These aren't feet game pictures, but are an example of what happens the second Dad gets home from work.

New blog address

Sorry for the change. Just thought it might be better if Erick's name wasn't the address for our blog. You don't think of these things when you first start blogging!

Also, when I changed addresses I lost my blogroll and have had to put them all back on from memory. If I missed yours, leave me a comment and I'll put you back on. (Hmmm....I should have left everyone off so I would have had LOTS of comments. Just kidding. I can't stand comments.)

I'm hoping that reverse psychology worked on you. Especially if you read this blog and have never left a comment. No pressure.

Things

Here are two conversations with Raegan yesterday that I don't want to forget:

R: "I don't want to be skinny for halloween."
Me: "What?"
R: "I don't want to want to be skinny and have skin and spikes on my skin." (pulling on skin on arm)
Me: "Okay."


Scenario: I'm explaining to R before she goes to bed that the goal of wearing a pull-up is to NOT pee pee in it. It's just for accidents. Because someday you are going to want to spend the night at someone's house for a slumber party, and those big girls are just going to be wearing panties....so on and so on.

R: "I can't wait to spend the night at Christian's house." (Christian is a boy) "When do I get to spend the night at Christian's house?"
Me: Laughing to myself and thinking NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS!
R: "But girls don't spend the night at boy's houses."
Me: "Right."
But then she grilled me about why girls don't spend the night at boy's houses. I didn't know how to answer that one. How do you?


Greyson developed an obsession with wearing Raegan's shoes yesterday and this morning. These mary janes from Payless combined with holding this random basket with ball inside (his version of a baby) allowed me an hour of cleaning freedom. My little weirdo. Love him.

First picture of the event. Tired eyes should have been my first clue.

Too much to take in at once.

National Anthem on an elephant.

The best thing about sitting in the nosebleed section. This guy driving into the rafters.

Greyson's slobbery, pacifier-rashed reaction to the guy driving into the rafters. I quote, "OOOOOOooooohhhhhhhh..."

Fading fast.

Out.

Livin' on Tulsa time

It's not a trip to the Grand Canyon, but it is a weekend in Tulsa. I played with the Tulsa Symphony last night, so Erick and the kids drove up to spend the night. As much as I look forward to leaving town to play sometimes, I really can't wait to see them again. Greyson got off that elevator and looked at me like I was an alien for a second. I don't think he can place me anywhere other than home. It didn't take him long to remember who I was, though.

We're still here. I'm done playing, but we are staying until this afternoon. We were going to head to the aquarium in Jenks, but we had a slight change of plans when we realized the Ringling Brothers are performing RIGHT DOWN THE STREET!!! We can practically smell the elephants. I honestly don't remember ever going to the circus. Maybe when I was 3 or 4. Either way, it's been a really long time.

You can be sure we'll put some circus pictures on here tonight. Hope you're having a great Fall Break.

(And Sarah B., thanks for the book. I got to read a chapter while everyone was asleep last night. I'm hooked.)

I love it that these two are becoming such good friends at school. Thanks to Gabe, they even have their own game they play called 'animal changer.' Whatever that is, I'm sure it's fun.

We survived the potential cupcake disaster today, and their teacher didn't mind a bit. It's fun to have any excuse to bust into your kid's classroom and be a fly on the wall. One infamous character in Raegan's class was up to his usual tricks (according to Raegan, that is). Some small contraband came flying out of his pants pocket right in front of me, and she said, "See mom, I told you _________ always brings things to class. That's not the right thing to do." I was cracking up, because this child has a name that is so angelic it doesn't seem like he would ever do anything wrong. Kind of like the name Raegan. :) (Little joke)

The verdict

In reference to my last post, I'm not so sure the kids were impressed. Greyson pulverized some cornbread and picked at a half eaten apple from the fridge, and Raegan would only put a bite in her mouth if Erick and I did it simultaneously with her. And then she made some horrible faces. Erick loved it, though.

On a side note, I bought Erick a book of Sudoku puzzles at the grocery store tonight. Keeping in mind my goal of doing some more reading, I actually caught myself looking at books in the romance section next to the Sudoku puzzles. Some of them looked good - like the three I found written by legitimate romance writers. The others (which cost $3.95) were a little more questionable. One was actually called 'Spanish doctor, pregnant nurse.' I won't even begin to describe the cover. At that point I became embarrassed and escaped to the frozen food section. At which point a college student smiled/smirked at me. I wasn't sure if it was a "Hey, welcome to the Sudoku club, you intellectual, you.", or "This desperate housewife has been staring at romance novels for like five minutes. And she's wearing a prairie skirt."

I'm off to make 2 dozen cupcakes for Raegan's teacher's birthday party in the morning. I'm pretty sure she asked us NOT to bring cupcakes because they are so messy for pre-kers. But the homeroom mom and I agreed that we could bend the rules just this once?..... I'm beginning to sweat a little over our decision. Maybe I should send along some baby wipes, too.

I've really got to start cooking more. One of my students walked in my house, smelled stew cooking, and was so perplexed to actually smell something simmering that he kept asking if it was popcorn. His sister said it was cozy, followed up with his statement that it felt like Christmas. I can only hope that my family can equally appreciate all of the hours of hard work it took to dump everything into my crock pot and walk away.

Funny

Every morning on the way to school, Raegan and I say a prayer. Lately, I have noticed a semi-embarrassment/resistance about praying with Erick and I at bedtime, so we have been trying to make prayer a constant thing that happens throughout the day. Not just this huge pressure-packed big one at the end of the day. We have been having talks about how God wants to hear from you all of the time. When you're sad, happy, excited......at school, home, church. Pretty much anywhere.

The other day, Raegan told me she said a prayer on the log at recess. Beaming from ear to ear, I told her how happy that made God (and Mom). She then commenced to tell me that she had to tell her friend (who is a bit of a tag-a-long and sometimes gets under her skin) to LEAVE ME ALONE- I'M PRAYING! So now that we have tackled the prayer hurdle, I guess we can start focusing on kindness to friends - even ones that follow you to the log to pray.

R.I.P.

I don't know when I lost the thrill of playing with and holding frogs. It is most definitely gone. It took every ounce of my strength to touch this little guy and pull him out of my parent's pool this afternoon. Cold, bloated. It wouldn't have been so bad had it not been almost dead when Raegan decided he would be her new pet. Normally an animal lover herself, the fact that she doesn't want to touch him tells me she has seen through my white lies. "Oh he's fine...he's just warming up." However, no amount of leaves or grass piled on top of his head is seeming to do the trick.

So for now, our little friend is 'taking a nap' out in the monkey grass. I'm glad tomorrow is trash day.

It wasn't sushi, but it was a babysitter, a tree-huggers paradise, red beans and rice, and coffee after I taught yesterday. Erick must have read what I wrote. Making an appearance was my good friend Lisa, her boyfriend Tanner, and a complicated game of Sudoku between the guys. I will go ahead and mark that one down in my book as something I couldn't care less about. I would rather sit in algebra class again.

I knew the place I was at in life when on the way home, Erick and I had to stop at Wal-Greens to get dental floss. Not only couldn't go home without it (because we were out), but were both flossing our teeth driving down our street. Don't ever accuse us of not practicing good dental hygiene. If there's one item I would consider essential to survival while stranded on a deserted island, it would be dental floss. Can I get an amen?

Sushi lovers - soon.......

One goal

On the way to taking Raegan to school this morning, I realized why I'm in a blogging funk. Or at least why I'm telling myself so. I don't think I have any new thoughts or stories to share because I haven't gone anywhere by myself or done anything with friends in a long, long time. I feel like I'm stuck in the day to day routine (I wanted to type monotony), and my mind is just totally uninspired. It's weird.

My quartet played at a bookstore a couple of weeks ago, so Erick and I decided to go a little early to hang out. I found myself not remembering what I like to read, having awkward conversations with people I used to know intimately, and having to think for like five minutes about what I used to order to drink. I think I settled for the safe choice of a mocha.
An initial meeting of a girlfriend's book club a few weeks ago left me feeling very NON-intellectual and frankly, disappointed in myself. My dear friends (who are also childless) were listing scores of books that they had read and enjoyed, and I was just trying to rack my brain to remember the last time I picked up a book. Not to mention racking my brain to think of something intelligent to say.

I don't say all of this to complain about where I am in life. I'm really happy being a mom, teacher,wife...etc. I just figured out this morning that maybe I need to remember who I am when I'm not around my family. I remember that I love sushi, books, music, practicing, being outside, detailing my car ( I know, strange), talks with girlfriends. You know.

So, it's my short term, eventually long term goal to re-kindle relationships, re-visit books, smother some sushi in wasabi and soy sauce, and remember what makes me, ME! If anyone else is in, I know some great happy hour sushi places. And if you're not into that, I'm sure they have something American on the menu.

I'm in a blogging FUNK, so enjoy this story of a baptism gone terribly wrong. I'll get my mojo back soon I hope.

Graceful

Not so much

The trouble for Raegan only comes when she has to move. Everything else is a piece of cake. At least her leotard isn't backwards this time.

Gross

First issue: Morning Star Sausages. Two words: NOT GOOD. Maybe it's because Erick cooked them, but I don't think so. He WAS a short order cook at Denny's in college, after all.

Erick hates them.

Greyson (who eats anything) deposited his on the garage floor. It's a sausage, I promise.

We have a winner.

Second issue: My attempt at a nature hike with Raegan and preserving some of our findings. How cute...we can save these little pods and acorns, and take them out on a rainy day. Make something crafty! As a result, on this rainy day, I have found these random bugs all over my kitchen eating themselves out of the acorns and the bag. I have lost my appetite.

Also, I can't forget to wish my Dad a Happy 60-something birthday. This guy has taken the blogging world by storm, (despite his reservations that all bloggers are female and we would think he was weird for wanting to join the club) and has turned out an incredible number of stories. I think the best birthday present would be to discover that he has subscribing members in every corner of the globe. He told me it's like operating a ham radio, and it's the most exciting thing he has ever done. You are so funny, Dad. Love you.

P.S. I will go ahead and tell you that your birthday present is Bill O'Reilly's latest book, as well as 'Blogging for Dummies.' You will have a special delivery later this evening, at the latest tomorrow. :)

Welcome to the club.

Home Decorators

Home Decorators Collection is going out of business and everything is half off. Even Erick was excited. They were packed, so if you need anything, go soon!

Big night out

Erick filled in on drums with the Summer Singers tonight, so we headed out to hear him play. Note to self: concert on asphalt surface makes for a great dancing/running area- just make sure to wear pants next time to avoid gross knee injuries. Greyson's going to be one scarred kid. I'm talking due to scrapes here, people.

A highlight of the evening was reminiscing over me and Erick's days in Summer Singers. Sitting on the sidelines jamming out with my kids reminded me of the 'older' Summer Singers that would come hear us play back when we were in the band. I remember thinking how old they were. Like, they had KIDS and stuff. Well, I guess I'm the old person now. To add insult to injury, a college kid said "Yes, ma'am," to me after I asked him a question. Gulp. I almost got sick. Unless you are 50 or over, and just say ma'am to every female ( I love those country kind of guys), please don't say it to me. My youthful heart just can't take it.

Hope you are having a great Friday night.

One more thing...

I've got to brag on Erick and Ryan. Go check out the Outlook magazine in your mailbox today and read the story on their business. I'm so proud of them!

To the boy at Walgreens

Checker Boy: "He has something in his mouth."
(looking with disgust at Greyson's small contraband that he picked up from no telling where)
Me: "I know." (Sweetly smiling but secretly wanting to throttle him)
Boy: "Do you want me to throw it away for you?"
Me: "No thanks. It's buying me a little time - I'll take it from him in a minute. I guess you can tell he's a second child, huh?"
(Hardy har har. Please just laugh along with me so I can get out of here)
Boy: Silence and stare of incredulity.

I'm thinking that checker boy was a second child, too.