State Volleyball

The girls' volleyball team headed to the state tournament Thursday, and  they brought the cheer team (Varsity) with them.  So the prince, as ever, was up for a road trip.  The state volleyball title dream ended pretty quickly, but the kids had fun.  Today he's off to a choir festival for two days, and they only have 2 days of school next week.  Lucky dog!

Movie Review: An Unfinished Life

As luck would have it, after reading "An Unfinished Life", the library had the movie available to rent.  So I checked it out and watched it.  Major disappointment!  SLLLOOOOW moving.  I didn't feel that way reading the book, but the movie was slow.  Not only that, but it had great potential.  It stars Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman!  But they couldn't save it.  My advice: don't bother with this one.

Thanks to the Veterans

Best. Parents. Ever.

Last night the BEST PARENTS EVER let the princess have a little get-together to finish out the birthday celebrations.  12 girls and 2 boys came over for food, sledding, s'mores, and Nerf wars.  If the noise level was any indication, they had a great time.  The boys left at 10 pm and then is was time for the sleep-over portion of the night.  Sleep is a relative term.  I put ear plugs in at midnight!  

I fed them breakfast--18 eggs/cheese, 18 waffles, OJ, and milk later...at about 9 AM, and they headed home shortly after that!  

Like I said: Best. Parents. Ever.  Don't even try to compete with us!

TWIPR

The TWIRP gods smiled on us tonight, and we were able to get to both kids' photo sessions while it was still daylight and reasonable warm.  This whole photo think is a BIG deal.  I have many more photos of various poses and with other props, but I think you get the idea.  I may post a few more later, but for now...this will do.  As I type this they are each out to dinner with their friends.  The princess and her group went to an Italian restaurant, and the prince and his group are eating Italian at someone's home.  The dance starts at 8:30.  In both cases they are going to well-chaperoned homes afterward for movies.  Wahoo!

 He did that whole, Catholic, "Hail Mary" hand signal thing 

before she came at him with a stick pin!

 The princess and Andrew

 All of these kids are freshman with the exception of Andrew.

She cheers with 2 of the girls.  

The kids on the left...he's in sneakers, and she's in sequined sneakers.

Smart!!

 She's not really taller than him.

It's just how they were standing on the hill.

 JoAnne and the Prince

 The prince and his buddy are the only seniors in this group of juniors.

The girl 4 in on the left was his date to TWIRP his sophomore year.

And now...just for fun!

 Work it, girl!

Travis and the prince

About "An Unfinished Life"

I am giving "An Unfinished Life" by Mark Spragg 4 stars!  Yep, 4 stars.  I really liked this book.  It was a page turner for me, but not in the sense of a thriller/Grisham type novel.  

This is the story of a woman and her daughter escaping an abusive relationship.  They head "home" to a place the woman left before the daughter was born.  She lands at the home of her deceased husband, and the story really becomes about her and her father-in-law trying to get along.  There is another old guy living on the farm, and I loved the dynamics between all these characters.

This writer really gets it right, describing the Wyoming landscape and farm in good detail, but not too much detail.  And he slips in and out of third person in strange and odd ways, but not in confusing ways.  

This book was made into a movie in 2005 that starred Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford, and Morgan Freeman.  I have no memory of that, but I'm hoping it's on Netflix.  Good read.  I highly recommend it!

Happy Birthday, Mariah

Mariah will be turning 18 while I'm away next week.

Happy 18th birthday, Miss Mariah!

Quit making us all feel so old!

You are beautiful.

Have a great year!

Happy Birthday Mark

Mark will celebrate his 18th birthday while I'm gone so I'm posting this now!!

Happy 18th Birthday, Mark!

Enjoy your senior year.

And nice animal you've got there!

Congratulations!

So true!!!

Halloween Fun!

Oh my!  That's kind of scary, really.  A door bell, a "gulp" cheerleader, and a baseball player.  Check out the ribbon on Andrew's cap.  Best accessory ever!

A note about the door bell.  Earlier in the evening, she was in the car with the princess and me.  At that time she was wearing candy cane striped tights, the orange headband seen here, and face paint.  We were killing time, and the princess was showing us that the best way to keep your neck skin nice and tight was to tip your head back and make fish lips.  So the princess and I were practicing this when Christian said, "Wow.  This is the first time I've been the most normal person in this car!"  Hilarious!!!  

Oh, Becky!

This is how cousin Becky and her roommates handled Halloween this year.  Can't believe it worked!

Surprise!

It's hard to turn 15 and be so busy!  The princess had a busy day yesterday, and this weekend will continue to be BUSY, so there was no time to celebrate!  Wait!  Me to the rescue.  With a little quick planning, and an offer from Grandma to bake her favorite cake, and generous moms who were willing to let their kids stay out a little late on a school night, we were able to pull off a surprise party!  Mary Beth kidnapped her and Christian from dance, her friend Madi came over, and a party was born!  She was surprised and happy.  Thanks to everyone for helping us pull it off!  The cake was great, but the company was better!  

Is this a great job or what?

Yesterday one of my students brought cupcakes to class.  Aren't they cute?  And they were tasty too!  This is a great job!

Happy Birthday Beautiful Princess!

Look who is turning 15 today!  Our baby is sure getting old!  Growing up!  Getting on with her life!  It's a little sad, but we sure are proud of her and love her so very much!  Have a great day, little girl!  

Happy Birthday, Sparky!

This post is a day early so that tomorrow I can focus on the OTHER birthday around here!

Happy Birthday, Dear Sparky!

Hope that turning 100 is great for you!

Oh, I mean 7!

Have a wonderful day, and tell your mom that 

the thing you want most is

CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!

Poor Princess

On Wednesdays school doesn't start until 9:20 for the kids.  The princess just stumbled out of her room, asked if it was Wednesday, and stumbled back to bed when told it was!  She set her alarm too early.  The beauty is she's probably already back to sleep.  Kids are like that!

Pre-Halloween Fun!

Last weekend the cousins had a big Halloween party to attend.  Their mama bought a bag of costumes at a garage sale, and now it was time to figure out which one to wear!  That's a smart mama!

 Mariah

 Ariana

 Sparky!

What the heck?

That's not a very attractive Snow White!

Once the costumes were worked out, it was time to go to the party.

 Mariah got to be a costume contest judge.

Can you spot her?

And here they are with their chosen costumes.

That's a much happier Sparky!

They had a great time!  

Gilligan's Island

On Friday, I hosted a game room for the last 45 minutes of the day as a reward to students with no "F"s.  They didn't all come to my room, but it was one of the options they could choose from.  The school has a lot of games, and they hang out with friends and play. (I did have some 7th grade girls trying to drum up some drama, but I promptly put a stop to that.  There is no drama allowed in my room.  I have zero patience for it.)

Anyway, a group of kids were playing a trivia game.  I'm not sure what it was called, but they were having a good time.  There would be a question with multiple answers, and they got points for each answer.  They were doing pretty well until they got to this question...Name the people on Gilligan's Island.  They were stumped!  They are far too young to have watched it originally, and apparently it doesn't re-run on any of the channels they watch.

So Jeanette and I came to their rescue.  There are 7 of them.  Can you name them?  We got them all and got them quickly!  The answer is below...

Gilligan

The Skipper

The Professor

Mr. and Mrs. Howell

Ginger

Mary Ann

Good times!

Last night J took us to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  We hadn't been there yet.  The kids didn't want to go, so we promised to bring them back something.  This is the burrito they each ordered.  I put the glass next to it so you could get an idea of how huge this thing is.  I'm pretty sure it was about 10-12 inches long and filled with chicken, lettuce, beans, and rice.  Wow!  They both managed to snarf it down too.  No worries there!  Thanks J!

Final JV Game

Saturday the princess cheered her final JV football game of the year.  It was a close one, but we lost 7-12.  And it was chilly!  I was doing the math as I sat there...assuming she cheers through high school, there will be about 30 more football games.  About half of those will be home games that we'll attend.  Half again will be in the warmer months of August and September, so hopefully we only have about 8 more cold games to sit through!!!  Hopefully!

 She won't be happy I posted this one, but I like it!

 The final set of pushups!

And look who came to watch the last game!

Senior Night!

Last night was Senior Night at our last game (and last home game) of the season.  We played one of the other schools in town.  They were ranked #1 going into this game.  We were ranked at about #7.  I must be honest and say that I didn't think we would win.  I was a Debbie Downer.  Our best receiver was benched for getting in a fight at school earlier in the week.  But it was Senior Night, and we do have a senior to be honored so we bundled up and headed out, dragging our Florida friend with us to take photos.  (It's okay.  It was good practice for her up-coming Antarctica trip!)

 Seniors posing for me before the game.

 Practicing a stunt before the game.  

It was only about 30* when the game started and got colder as the night went on.  During a stunt at the end of 1st quarter, one of the girls being lifted fell. I'm not sure what happened, but I saw her wobble and then fall in a direction where there was no one to catch her.  The prince said he "heard a thud" behind him.  She was taken by ambulance to a local hospital.  I believe it was precautionary, but we certainly hope it's nothing serious.  Cheer can be very Scary!

 The princess found friends and blankets to help keep her warm!

 The proud family!

 Those cuties!

I held it together pretty well, but when they posed for this picture I almost had a tearful mom moment!

So back to the game.  We ended up staying to watch the whole thing, because--whodathunk?--we were winning at half time!!!  The other team scored first, but they never scored again, and the final, GLORIOUS score was 24-7!!!  It was GREAT for our team.  This is their 4th win in a row.  I like to think they are hitting their stride now.  They will probably still be ranked 7th (there's one more high school game to be played today before final rankings come out), but they will definitely play in the playoffs, although it will most certainly be an away game.  That's okay.  Our boys won on the road last week and will probably be playing a team they beat earlier this season!  Go Falcons!!

Finally, here are a few of the boys with the City trophy.  Having beat both of the other teams from our town this year, they will hold the trophy this year.  I'm quite sure this has not been in their possession in YEARS!  Great job, boys!!

And I just have to give a shout-out to my Lockwood kids!  Over and over last night, many of the big plays were being made by kids from the Wood!  What a great night!

Pack The Place In Pink 2012

Last night was the annual Pack The Place in Pink event.  I don't think the turn-out was as big as in the past couple of years, but the place was definitely packed.  Even better, our JV team won their volleyball match in 3 straight games, and our Varsity girls won 3-1!  Wahoo!  Best of all, there was lots of money raised for a great cause.  The volleyball coach (who started this even when she got cancer several years ago) said last night that the first year they only sold about 800 t-shirts.  This year they ordered 10,000 shirts!!!  While we played West high last night, I saw on facebook that Senior also was sporting their own pink shirts yesterday. This is a true community event, and all funds raised stay in our region!  A special thanks to the king who worked the concession stand last night while I was taking pictures!  And thanks too to J for keeping me company and taking some of the photos you see here.  Until next year...

 The princess got to call the cheers last night!

 The prince didn't do much cheering last night,

but he did help with a stunt. 

 He had a great time though.

No photos of him stunting (crowd was in the way),

but here's a photo of him earlier in the day

with one of his cheer peeps.

Storming the court after the WIN!

A few updates:

1.  There is no coffee in our house. I'm pretty sure we have NEVER run out of coffee.  EVER.  This is not good.

2.  The prince took himself to the tux shop yesterday and rented his own tux for TWIRP.  I offered to go, but I believe his exact words were, "Mom, I've got this."  Sniff, sniff.  Can it be very long before he's ordering his own tux for his wedding.  (It better be a long time!!)  And yes, I still got to pay for the tux, just didn't get to go with him.  The good news is we can pick it up on Thursday and don't have to return it until Monday.  I mean HE gets to pick it up Thursday, and HE gets to return it Monday.

3.  You'll be glad to know that I was finally able to get my photos from Walmart.  I checked my "on line" status, which said they were done.  I went to Walmart, and sure enough, there they were.  :)  Thank goodness.  I didn't want to have to go all "western" on Walmart.  My guess is that there was a problem with the on-line part of the order but that the local Walmart didn't know that.  At least all is well now!  I know you were worried.

4.  And not to brag or anything, but so far this morning I have whitened my teeth, ironed a shirt, paid some bills, given the kids each $5 to feed themselves at the concession stand at Pack the Place in Pink tonight--it's a miracle I remember that one, boiled some pasta, cleaned out my email pile, and blogged.  And it's only 6:10 AM.  Gonna be a GREAT day people!!!  And by the way (cuz I'm not done bragging yet), I also made 9 batches of chicken pot pie filling last night.  I know.  I'm amazing.

5.  Speaking of amazing, did I tell you I changed my name?  At work I am now Annie Sullivan--the miracle worker.  Yes, it's true.  And I know about 5 teachers who will attest to it.  I got one kid to finish 9--NINE--English assignments the other day.  That might be a record for me!  I also got to holler at a kid for being a knucklehead (I hate it when kids work the system) and then right after that, as I was helping him with he vocabulary, I got to define "bellow" for him.  Trust me, the irony was not lost on me, but it totally went over his head!!

About "Family Honor"

I am giving "Family Honor" by Robert B. Parker 2 stars.  This is the story of Sunny Randall, a female detective, who is trying to figure out who is trying to kill a wealthy teen run-away.  It's a fast read, but it was pretty predictable.  Still, it's a mystery, and I like mysteries.  So it gets 2 stars!

Sometimes they are nice to each other!

Sometimes I really, really love them.  Sometimes they are nice to each other.  Sometimes...like last night. First they posed all nice before their concert.  THEN the prince even offered (without her asking or me giving him "the look") to hold her phone for her when she was on stage so she didn't have to take her bag.  What a guy!