Grandma to the Rescue!

Today Grandma called to make sure we were home because she had something for us. Last Monday that something happened to be a pumpkin pie, so we were pretty excited for our surprise. When she arrived, the prince answered the door and said, "Yes! Grandma brought dinner!" When I came around the corner there she was with a waffle maker and waffle batter! Phew! I won't have to worry about getting one of those for my birthday. I already had dinner plans, but the prince can make himself waffles for breakfast! Thanks Grandma! You're the best!

No, Thank You

Tonight the prince mentioned that he sure wished we had a waffle maker. Then he got that "I've got a GREAT idea" look on his face and, looking at me, said, "I know, we can get you one for your birthday." NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!! I don't want a waffle maker for MY birthday. After pointing that out to him emphatically I said, "How about if we get you one for your birthday?" He was cool with that. Phew--dodged a bullet in the old "if you have to use it to cook or clean it doesn't count as a gift" department!

First You Have To Get Through 8th Grade!

One of my 8th graders is a chronic misser-of-school. Though he'll tell you he has many ailments, the truth is that he's a big ol' crybaby (that's my professional diagnosis), and his mom lets him call the shots. Whatever...not my judgment to make, I guess. Anyway, he's on his second carnival ride through 8th grade--had to repeat it this year after missing about 1/2 the year last year. Two weeks ago he was absent all week. This past week he was absent all but one day. On the day that he was there I gave him a very long (overwhelming to him, I sure) list of his missing assignments. A few minutes later I checked on him, to see which assignment he was working on. He wasn't. He was filling out his high school enrollment form. HELLO!!! First you have to get through 8th grade. And it's not looking good for him right now!

Survivor

SPOILER ALERT--IF YOU DIDN'T SEE SURVIVOR LAST NIGHT (2/25), DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!! COME BACK LATER!!

Coach-Villain

Danielle-Villain

JT-Hero

Jerry-Villain

Russel-Villain

We lost our first player in the Survivor pool last night when Randy was voted out. It didn't take them long to get rid of "the old guy." They were dumb too...why aren't these people taking out strategic players????

Did you ever want to kiss a pig?

Vegas...

T minus 17 days and counting...

Algebra

My new favorite algebra formula:

y=mx+b

Good times. The 8th graders are rockin' it.

If you don't remember it, that's okay. I don't remember it either, but I've relearned it.

Good times!

DWS

I'm all caught up on my reality tv for another week. But check out who they just announced for the next season of Dancing With the Stars! I don't usually watch that one, but I might have to tune in this time!




Scroll down, I didn't want to ruin the surprise!

Gotta love Photoshop!

Growing Up 2

The princess will have you know that she is now 5'2". I have no real proof of that, but she seems to think it is so. And here she is, a couple of weeks ago, passed out on my bed on a Saturday afternoon after a hard dance work-out. (Don't tell her I posted this photo!)

17 Years!

The king and I are married 17 years TODAY!!

Yippee for us.

And I'd do it all again, but I would change the following about our wedding day:

I would have chosen another month or stayed in Billings so as not to have to be married in a snowstorm and than have to drive back to Billings.

I would have hired a photographer.

That's it.

All the rest, I'd do over again!

Growing Up

A couple of nights ago the king mentioned that the prince is now taller than he is. He then stood back-to-back with the prince to show me that this was so. And it was true. In fact, the prince is now taller than the king BY A HAIR!

That's hilarious to those of you familiar with the amount of hair one has and the lack of hair the other has!

How Can You Tell When People Have Had Enough Snow?

Got it.

Jello? Got it.

Pudding? Got it.

Ramen noodles? Got it.

Ice cream? Got it.

Yep, we're ready.

It's braces-tightening day.

6th Grade Funny

I asked one of my students what they did in Science today. He said, "We were presentating."

Presentating: the act of doing a presentation????

I had him look that word up in the dictionary. It wasn't there! :)

Eye Trouble

I think I have an eye problem.

After the three-day weekend, I just can't SEE myself going to work today!

Snow Day

No school for the princess or myself today so we headed up the mountain to ski while the king toiled away and the prince was at school. It was snowing up there, a little windy, but the temp. was mostly hanging around 30* so all was right with the snow world. Good times.

Happy Valentine's Day

Enjoy the day with your sweetie!

Snow Everywhere

I try not to blog every time it snows now, because it just keeps snowing. But I did want to let you know that the king heard on the radio today that right now EVERY state in the country, with the exception of Hawaii, has snow somewhere in it! That's it. I'm moving to Hawaii.

Olympic Moment

The prince was watching the Olympics a little while ago. He was watching Apollo Ono in a qualifying round. I heard the prince say, "Go America!" in his deepest voice. It was cute. And Apollo won that round.

Week One

PHEW! Just had a chance to watch the first episode of Survivor, and all our players are still in. Here's what I thought of that first episode:

1. Jerri and Coach--ewwwww

2. I had forgotten how funny Tyson is.

3. I couldn't even remember who Sugar was until she started crying.

4. They were all fools not to take out a strategic player.

5. Did you see the previews for next week??? OHHHHHHHH soooooooo goooooood!

I love this show!

Books

Judging by that book list on the side, I'm only reading female authors! It's not intentional. It's just worked out this way. I just finished Smoke Screen by Sandra Brown. If you're into suspense novels with lots of plot twists...she's your girl. Incidentally, my next read is The Help by Kathryn Stockett--another female writer. I can't wait. It's getting rave reviews from all my peeps! But maybe I should go clean the house or pay some bills or get my groceries first. Or maybe I should run out to Mary Beth's because I forgot it at her house yesterday! :)

Shhhh...

Shhhh...

Don't tell me what happened on Survivor last night. I was at the Staff/Celebrity basketball game (a PTA fundraiser) so missed it. But I'll watch it this weekend online!

The basketball game was loads of fun. We have some funny people working at our school, and some recognizable celebrities from tv and radio came out too so the kids had a great time. This event really showcases the Middle School with the 8th grade boys taking on the 8th grade girls in the pregame. The boys will tell you the refs were calling fouls to let the girls win. In the end, it was a tie, so all was well.

Also, right after school, the princess and I buzzed over to our best hair-cutter ever, Emily, so she could have several inches removed. She then requested that Emily style it into a Shag. It's Shagalicious, baby! Very cute, and still long enough to pull back into a pony for dance and volleyball. Oh yes, she started volleyball this week too!

This weekend the prince is skiing with a friend tomorrow, and the princess and I will head up to the mountain on Monday (we don't have school Monday but the prince does) to do a little skiing. Okay, she'll ski. I'll sit in the lodge and visit with Mary Beth. But it's all good. Everybody goes home a winner!

Have a great weekend!

Stupid Blogger

Why does it crunch of the photos like that? It's not what it looks like when I'm writing it. And while I'm on the subject, why does it sometimes smash my paragraphs together and other times leave the spaces in there?

Stupid blogger!

Survior Premiers TONIGHT!

Survivor's latest season starts tonight. This time it's Heroes versus Villains...bringing back winners and near-winners from previous seasons. There was a lot of talk of this being the last season...go out with a bang and all that...but it has lately been announced that they will do at least 2 more seasons and Jeff Probst will host those as well.

While my friend was selling spots in the Survivor pool, we didn't know they would be renewed, so I decided this might be our last, best chance to win a survivor pool, and instead of buying our usual 3 players, I bought 5!! Surely that'll increase our odds a little???

We ended up with 4 Villains and 1 Hero. Here they are!

JT--Hero

Russel--Villain

Randy--Villain

Danielle--Villain (there couldn't be a season where we didn't have a girl falling out of her swimsuit!)

Coach--Villain

Who will win? I don't know. But I think our best shot is with either JT (who won a previous year) or Russel (who should have won last season). People are telling me the winners and near-winners will be voted out, and in previous seasons I would agree with that, but this season there are so many past winners, that I think maybe that won't be as big of a factor.

Tune in tonight!

Harmonica and Spoons

This weekend the king took the prince and Reed to the guitar store. After that, they headed next door to the music store. The king ran into someone working there whom we graduated from high school with, and while the boys looked around, they caught up a little, not having seen each other in many, many years.

Eventually the boys decided to go in together and buy a harmonica. It cost $12, but the sales guy gave them the "class of '82" discount, so it came out to $8.50. Math geniuses they aren't, because the king said it was quite comical to watch them try to figure out how to split that with their various bills.

They got home, checked out the harmonica for awhile, but must have decided it was too difficult, because the next thing I know, they've got 4 of my spoons and are on utube, learning to play THE SPOONS. They both managed to learn them a bit, after much clanging, and the prince even has the blisters to prove it. I'm not sure where the harmonica is.

Maybe it's "living at Reed's house" for awhile, though that doesn't seem fair. Harmonicas take up a lot less room than big ol' honkin' keyboards!

Smarty Pants

Congratulations to Mary Beth's son, Daniel. He took first place in the school spelling bee. Now it's on to the city bee! Way to go Daniel!!!!

Brainiac--NOT

I had one of my students put the math assignment on the board. Here's what he wrote:

Math-assinent

HUH? That's why he's in my class!

Isaiah

My Colorado nephews all are big wrestlers. They've been doing this for a few years now. The oldest is a sophomore in high school. There's a sixth grader. And then there's the FOUR-year-old. Yep, the 4-year-old. He LOVES it because his big brothers have been wrestling for years, and they've been teaching him all their moves. Turns out, he's also pretty good at it.

He and the 11-year-old (he'll be 12 soon; he'd want you to know that!) wrestled in a tournament this weekend. The 11-year-old wrestled really well and took 3rd place.

But then it was Isaiah's turn to shine. He wrestled like he was born to. Pinned all his opponents, and took FIRST place! Not only that, but he was awarded Outstanding Wrestler for 2010 for that wrestling group!

Did I mention that he's FOUR!!!

And in case you think he's all brawn and no brains...he's in preschool. And he knows how to spell his name. Take note people: that's "I S A I--dot at the top--A H."

Great job Isaiah. We're proud of you!

Not sure why this photo is smaller than the others,

but...that's Isaiah, about to SLAM his opponent to the ground!

With one of the coaches after his big win.


Trophies!

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

Even though the Colts lost (props to NO, they had it goin' on), and even though the score NEVER had an 8 in it, one of my boxes did come up--second quarter! Wahoo! I'll take that $40 in BIG BILLS, please! :)

Happy Birthday Andy!

Crash turns 11 today!

Hope you have a great day!

:)

Skate Night

It was Skate Night at the local ice arena last night. For only $4 high school students could skate from 10PM-Midnight, including skate rentals. The trick was getting a parent to take you and pick you up if you are a freshman, because you can't drive! Luckily, the prince's mom is DA BOMB, so they did some skating. I asked them to send me photos of them when they fell on their butts. They assure me there was some butt-falling, but these are the only photos they cared to share with me. I think they must have known they were going on the blog! The first is of the prince and Reed. The second is the prince and Lakota. Lakota is new to our area, and I think he's a vampire because he used to live up by where Bella, Edward, and the other Cullens are from! He has vampire potential, don't ya think? Heck, the prince looks like he's ready to take a bite out of someone!

Go Colts!

We are cheering for the Colts because Peyton is so darn cute--or at least that's why I'm cheering for them, but really I could care less who wins as long as at least one of my 5 squares comes up a winner in the football pool! But I'm not holding out much hope. I have the # 8 on 3 of my squares. You don't see that number on football scores very often. Loser!

Friends!

Last night the princess had a friend spend the night. In addition, we had four of our five neighbor kids over for dinner and a movie (the fifth had her own party to attend).

Here they all are, enjoying Toy Story.

All except Annalise, who conked out 5 minutes into the movie.

(Sorry this one's blurry.)

And there's Bjorn, who looks like he wishes he could be sleeping too, but that darn nose was too stuffy! He was a little under-the-weather, thus the rosy cheeks, but he wasn't grouchy at all.

That's How We Roll

Yep, it snowing again. Don't look so surprised.

Happy Birthday Little Sisty!

Happy Birthday to my baby sister who has one of those "BIG" birthdays today!!!! But don't worry, little sisty, you'll always be much younger than me!

I am having "issues" getting a photo of proper size up here, so I'm posting 3! We'd better get together so I can get some newer photos of you on my computer. Then maybe I won't have so much trouble!

Have an awesome day! We love you!

The Swankster

We have a student teacher names Mr. Swanke. I just heard a student say to him, "Mr. Swanke, before school may I call you "The Swankster"? I didn't hear his response, but I hope it was, "NO!!!!"

More

Just thought I'd let you know that up here in the Arctic Tundra it's snowing again. We're predicted to get 1-2 inches. Given recent amounts, I'm betting on more. I'm glad the king has an awesome snow-blower with which to blow it out of the driveway.

Geek With a Guitar

The prince is pretty cool. Usually dresses okay. Handsome. Has lots of friends. Plays a mean electric guitar. But every once-in-awhile, his inner-geek shows. Like Wednesday night when I heard him say to his father (a fellow geek), "Hey, Dad, tonight there are THREE hours of PBS for us to watch on TV!" He then listed all the great programming they could watch together.

Now, I love that he's spending time with his dad. I even don't mind that he's watching 3 hours of TV since it's PBS, but really? PBS???? Geek alert, geek alert!

By the way, though his father did watch PBS for 3 straight hours, he couldn't do it. He was back and forth, watching TV and playing the guitar and doing homework.

Learning to say, "No"

Friday the princess took the school-wide test to compete in the school spelling bee. Winner go on to the city/state/national bee. Last year she made the school cut and made it though several rounds before missing a word. This year she wrote on the top of her paper, "Please do not choose me. I do not want to be in the spelling bee." Monday she learned that she had made the cut, but her teacher was gracious and is not requiring her to compete. Phew! One less thing to add to that already busy schedule. I'm proud of her for letting go!

Good Deeds

Yesterday the king decided to burn some vacation and come home for the afternoon. He broke out the snow-blower and did our driveway (the "skiff" we were supposed to get on Sunday turned into many inches--AGAIN. He also did the neighbors' driveways on both sides of us. It turned out to be a blessing for one neighbor because they were getting ready to leave town and wondering how they would get that done on top of their other preparations. The other neighbors brought us brownies today to say, "thanks." I love my neighborhood, and I love the kind heart of the king!

Girly-girl?

No one will ever accuse the princess of being a girly-girl, but apparently there's enough estrogen in her system now to make her a little more feminine. Case in point: her favorite color is purple--it was blue for years--and she LIKES the dresses in these photos.

This weekend she fell asleep on my bed in the middle of the afternoon, and I took her photo. She doesn't want that picture on the blog (don't worry; she's not the boss of me; it'll get posted), so she suggested I take photos of her in her new dance outfits, and post them. I obliged her. Notice her nice "smiles." She informed me that's what I get since I MADE her have braces. If there weren't about $5,000 worth of metal in her mouth I might have to kick her in the teeth!

This is the "costume" she's wearing for her solo dance. She's doing a lyrical dance to Martina McBride's "Anyway." It's a beautiful song, and I can't wait to see the dance. She wants us to be surprised and wait to see it until her first competition at the end of March, but I told her I might cry when I see it the first time. She laughed and said something along the lines of, "I hope so." Mean girl. This costume is a very pretty purple, but it looks more blue in the photo.

What's up with the arm thing??? This is her costume for her competition team. They are dancing to "Halo" by Byonce (who now holds the record for number of Grammy wins by a female--one was for "Halo"--after Sunday's six wins). I have seen most of this dance so I won't cry.

She'll also compete in "Swing With Me Baby" with her competition team and the level below them. It's a fun jazz tune. Red polka-dot dresses. She doesn't have that one yet.

Her final competition is a duo that she did at last year's spring recital. They have really cool green costumes and dance to "Puff the Magic Dragon."

The first competition is at the end of March. The excitement is definitely building at our house! And my "dance mom" t-shirt should be here by then!

Crash Helmet Part 2

First of all, you should know that Andy is a HUGE sports freak, so this was a great night for him.

Andrew attended a hockey game this weekend. He was invited down to high-five the hockey players as they came onto the ice. What you are seeing is Andy's dad holding him, and the photo is obviously taken from above. I can't help noticing that the hockey player is wearing his helmet, but where or where could Andy's be??? In truth, it may well have been up at his seat, with his chair...or maybe he just wears it at school.

Below is my sister's email that came with the photo. I hope to post the other photo when she sends it...if she sends it. She might be upset with me now! :)

Last night Marty and I took Andy to a USU hockey game. Our friends' adult daughter, Kristi, works with the team. She noticed us. She arranged for A to go stand down where the team walks out on the ice. As the players walked by they all gave him high fives. It was pretty fun for him. After the game she told us to stay there because she was having a puck signed for him. So we waited a few minutes, and one of the players actually brought it out and gave it to him. It was signed by him and another player. So, it was a great time. I'm enclosing a picture taken by a company (rink shots) that takes pics of their games and posts them online. There is also a picture of Marty, Andy and one of the players that Kristi took while we were waiting for the rest of the team to come out. I don't have that picture yet, but she'll send it to me some day.