Tee Hee

I picked up the prince and his friend after track today. They groaned and informed me that they have "early morning" practice tomorrow. "How early?" I asked, fearing I wouldn't be able to sleep in.

"9:30," they said in unison!

Poor babies.

Later I said, "I was thinking you meant 6 AM."

"That's what someone else said too," the prince replied.

Well, duh, boys. Nine-thirty isn't really early to the non-teenagers of the world.

That's a lot of snow!

Two FEET of snow in Lewistown right now. Just rain here, thankfully!

Founding Mothers

I can't believe it. I'm a loser. For the first time since I joined the school book club, I did not--could not, would not--finish the book we were supposed to read. The book was called Founding Mothers, by Cokie Roberts (yep, the reporter), and was the story of the women behind the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. In theory, it should have been great, and I did get 100 pages in before I just couldn't do it, but WOW...it's dry. I wish she would have written it as historical fiction. I probably would have liked that. The women were amazing, brave, smart, and heroic, but the book...not so much!

Rain and Snow!

Lots of rain today. Possibly snow tomorrow. Brrr...it's April 30 tomorrow!

Full Moon

Can't fool me. I know there's a full moon brewing, and I don't even need to look out the window. The kids are CRAZY!!!

Ding #2

Turns out what the crossword people were looking for was "dent" as in a dent of the car door or door ding. Kind of a stupid clue for that word but whatever. We finished the puzzle today. Yippee!

Crossword

I've never been a fan of crossword puzzles, but this year I started trying to finish the daily newspaper puzzle with a co-worker during lunch. Mostly we fail, but every once-in-awhile we succeed. This morning I had a dentist appointment, so when I got to work, one of the kids had helped me "get started".


The clue was "ding a door". The child wrote "dong". I'm cracking up laughing because I'm pretty sure I've never seen "dong" in a crossword puzzle. Could the answer be "ring"? I think so!


Ahhhh...it's the little things...

Two School Funnies

1. I've been fighting this voice that comes and goes for some time now. The students at school have gotten used to it. But there is one boy who cracked me up the other day. He's classified as Special Ed because he has extremely high anxiety. The other day he asked if I thought I would ever get my voice back. I told him I wasn't sure. He then said, "Well, I don't know how I'll talk to you if you don't, because I don't know sign language!" Gotta love them!

2. I chaperoned a group of about 24 6th graders who went to the opera last week. (It was amazing, by the way as they showed us all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff in between acts.) Before the show started I was going over theater etiquette with them. I then told them to take out their cell phones and turn them off. No one moved. Several of them said they'd left them at home or in their lockers. So I then said, "I'm not writing you up for having it with you (they are to be turned off and left in lockers during the day.) Get them out and turn them off." No kidding...20 cell phones were pulled out of pockets and bags! Too funny!

Tonsillitis

I'm nothing if not stubborn, but even I know when it's time to throw in the towel. A week of a sore throat followed by 2 weeks of laryngitis finally convinced me to see medical attention. Seems it's probably tonsillitis...he wouldn't swear to it...and I'm taking penicillin now. I'll check back with you in 10 days if I'm not better! No note from the doctor so I guess I'm going to work tomorrow. :(

Another One Bites the Dust

SPOILER ALERT--SURVIVOR

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Our odds of winning are dwindling after this week's episode of Survivor! JT's DUMB move cost him a chance at a million dollars. What a goofball. And they'll all be gunning for my man, Russel now, but I still have hope that Danielle and her large bosoms--did you see them fall out of her itsy bitsy teeny weenie bikini the other night???--will fly under the radar a little longer! Though, if I were really lucky, I'd be holding Parvati's name now too. She might win it!

Happy viewing!

Stud?

Last night the king and the prince had to attend a cheer leading meeting (that's for the mascot thing) while I was at another meeting. They were the only two men in the room. The kids had to go around the room and introduce themselves and tell what grade they would be in next year. The prince was the last person to go and when he did, the crowd erupted in cheers!

As they left the prince says to the king, "Could you feel all the progesterone in the room, Dad?"

The king said, "Do you mean estrogen?"

He was quite full of himself, and the king was sort of basking in his glory. I hated to point out the obvious--he was the ONLY boy there!!!!

Happy Happy Birthday Boys!

What are the odds of two brothers being born on the same day but 8 years apart? I googled it but couldn't find a quick answer.

Still, happy birthday Jared and Matt. Enjoy your day!

And your mom is so cool--she lets you each choose a cake. You don't even have to share!

Jared--14

Matt--22

Uh-oh!

On Monday the prince's alarm clock didn't go off--he set it for PM instead of AM.

On Tuesday the princess' alarm clock didn't go off--she set it but didn't turn it on.

Spring fever and wishing it were already summer, or too many spring activities making them exhausted? You decide.

Happy Birthday Becky!

Happy Birthday Becky!!

Welcome to 20!

You're not getting older...you're getting better!

We Love You!

I admit it; some of these are frighteningly true!

The Man Rules

Please note.. these are all numbered '1 ' ON PURPOSE!
1. Men are NOT mind readers.
1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
1. Crying is blackmail.
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.
1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one .
1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself
1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.
1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings... Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say 'nothing,' We will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, Expect an answer you don't want to hear.
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine... Really.
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball or motor sports.
1. You have enough clothes.
1 . You have too many shoes.
1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!
1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight.

Things that make you go HMMM???

1. Friday the prince spent the night with a friend then had to work a track meet (not compete) at 8:30 Saturday morning. When he got home at 5:30, he fell asleep watching tv, woke at 6:30 to eat dinner, and then went to bed at 7:30. Did they really just watch one movie and then go to bed? Hmmm????

2. Yesterday I took the princess shopping for some summer tops. She bought girly stuff. Hmmm????

Spring Has Sprung!

We put the cushions on the patio furniture yesterday. It's supposed to be in the low to mid 70*s for the next several days! LOVIN' IT!

Mascot Mania

The prince was named an alternate for Mascot this year, which I think will be the perfect fit for him. He won't have to do all the games, but he'll get to have a little fun. Yippee!

Take a Break Lady!

My sister and her family spent a week at my folks' house recently. Our mom is something of a work-a-holic--or maybe she's ADHD; we're not sure--so she rarely sits down when we come to visit. She's in the kitchen a lot. She's entertaining the children (this means moving furniture to use the Wii and such). She's running to the grocery store a lot because she's forgotten how much teen boys eat. And sometimes I think she just runs away for awhile because she's had enough of waiting on us!! We try to help her, but mostly she does all the work.

So when Shelley and family were in AZ last week, she took this photo of my mom with the caption "Probably the only time Mom put her feet up all week." :)

But as I was looking at the photos, I noticed she did get to sit down a couple of other times.

Here she is with my handsome brother, although it does look like she's about to jump right up. And are those slippers??? Her feet must really be sore. Probably this was toward the end of the trip. And yes, I'm sure that's ginger ale in those bottles.

And look! Over to the right. Those are her feet again. She's sitting. Probably waiting for the kids to get done with the Wii so she can move the furniture back where it belongs!

We love you Mom!! You're the best!!

Try Outs!

The prince will be skipping a track meet today to try out for the school mascot tonight! He's very excited. And really, isn't this the perfect "gig" for him??? He had to write a paragraph, and today will have to do several different things--stop the crowd from booing, help a scared child (he said, "wouldn't it be best if I just walked away if they are scared of me?"), etc. And then he has to do a 30 second dance routine. There was much laughing at our house last night as his sister tried to choreograph something for him. She wanted all these intricate dance moves, but he had to keep reminding her that he would be wearing HUGE feet and a head he couldn't see out of very well! It was HILARIOUS. What was best though was that for a couple of hours, while he needed her help, there was harmony in our house! Good luck you rascally Falcon!

Why She Dances

This is the princess and Angelica--the awesome choreographer who put her "Anyway" dance together.

I reported earlier that "Anyway" took home the High Gold trophy, and here she is with it. There was much disappointment when they didn't do the top overall kids in her category because that was a missed opportunity at another trophy.

You see, her coaches enter them in competitions so they can learn from the judges' comments, but the truth is that this girl has had a shelf in her room, sitting empty for a year, waiting for a trophy. She was really hoping to pack that shelf this year. Thus the utter and complete disappointment when the opportunity for an award was yanked from her waiting fingers!

But alas, all was not lost. On Sunday she was back at dance for her group competition. During those awards, and while I wasn't really paying attention and the camera was put away because the group stuff was done, I heard, "And first place overall goes to 'ANYWAY'!" HUH?????? Sure enough they had waited until more kids danced in that category to do the overall stuff, and she took 1st place. This garnered her another plaque! Sweet.

But the best news came later in the evening. Her dance teacher called to tell us that somehow, in this computer age, all of her scores were not added into her total the day before. Her high gold had become--and this is the way the guy says it when he announces it--LLLIIIIIIIGHTNING GOOOOOLD! She was so excited.

Now we are very proud of her for going out there and doing her best and working so hard, but she's just glad to have filled up the trophy shelf!

Hey, she's 12!

Track Highlights

The king took these shots at Saturday's meet!

SWEET!

Love these guys!

In their cool warm-ups for their respective sports!

Book Club!

We had the BEST discussion at book club yesterday on The Time Traveler's Wife. We split about 50/50 on who did and didn't like the book, but we were able to talk and talk and talk for over an hour. If you have somebody you like to discuss books with, this one is worth the read! Our next book...Open Spaces by Russel Rowland, set in post-Depression MT. We'll see if it can compare with The Time Traveler's Wife. I will say this about it: the king has already started reading it!

Great Day!

The kids had a great day in sporting events yesterday, and by "great", I mean "fun". The prince threw 5 feet MORE than his best throw last meet in shot put. He gave javelin a try and was right in the thick of things. He thinks he placed in the top 8 in shot, but he's not quite sure. He's got a meet this Tuesday, but that's also at the same time as try-outs for school mascot, so he's torn...we'll see where he decides to be on Tuesday.

The princess finished day one of two days of dance competition in great form. She got a judge's choice award for her solo and placed "high gold" for it. Her duo placed "gold". The studio did really well with several high or lightning gold awards. Today she competes with her group. Unfortunately one of the five girls hurt her foot and can't dance today. They will reconstruct the dance the best they can and put their hearts into it and see how it goes this morning at 8 AM!!! Yikes! It'll be fun, any way it goes!

I'll post photos later. For now, this is it!

Survivor

Spoiler Alert!
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Sad news. We lost coach this week. The villains are falling apart, but I still have hope for Russel and JT! Love this show!

Weekend Agenda

It's going to be a busy one around here:

1. The king's sister is coming to spend the night tonight.
2. The princess has a school dance after school today. (I am not chaperoning!)
3. The prince has track practice after school.
4. The princess has dance practice after the dance.
5. Whomever is available will go to dinner with the king's family later tonight.
6. The prince has a track meet at 12 tomorrow. Shot put and javelin.
7. The princess heads to the dance competition at 2 to watch others from her studio.
8. The prince is having a friend spend the night Sat. night.
9. The princess competes in her dance solo and duo Sat. night.
10. We're back at the dance competition at 7 AM for the princess' group competition.
11. Book club meets at my house at 4 PM Sun. to discuss The Time Traveler's Wife.

Phew! Good thing we got lots of rest last weekend.

Oh, and did I mention I've lost my voice??? It's been trying to go for a couple of days. It's pretty well gone this morning. We'll see how it goes...

Belated Dance Photos

We have another dance competition and track meet this weekend. I thought I'd better post this set of dance photos before they get mixed with this weekends! (I know, you can never have too many dance photos!) The princess says she's not excited for this weekend's competition. I can't decide if that means she's nervous or not. We'll see how it goes. The prince will throw javelin this weekend, along with shot. I will get to go to his meet for a couple of hours, so I hope he throws during that time! We've got company coming this weekend. Book club meets at my house the weekend. Bring it on! It'll all be fun!

They got warm-ups this year.

She was none too excited that I made her get them bigger.

They need to fit next year too!

Cool-i-o!

And the clip in her hair is part of her costume.

Beautiful.

The dance director, peeling off the green eye shadow from the first dance to make way for the purple eye shadow needed for the second dance! Oh brother!

This is her awesome dance director who choreographed the duo and parts of the group song. Behind them is the teacher who choreographed other parts of the group song and her solo. We love these ladies!

The princess and Christian.

Gotta love this photo.

Two cute girls.

Two mouths full of braces.

Two full smiles.

That doesn't happen very often!

All 4 competition teams with their bling.

Group hug!
Can't wait for this weekend!

The Time Traveler's Wife

I just added The Time Traveler's Wife to my book list. I read it a year or more ago and found it VERY difficult because it jumps around in time all the time. The author does her best to keep you on track, but it's still very difficult. I didn't really like it much. Now I have re-read it for book club, and I liked it MUCH better the second time around. I liked it enough to give it two stars, and I'm curious to see the movie and see how they handle it. I might have to rent it.

Mad Mom Skills

You should know that I have many mad mom skills. I keep most of them hidden so as not to make the other moms feel bad. However, I am going to share with you what is, perhaps, my maddest skill!

I am told that I make the BEST toast, and I'm told this by many of my kids' friends. And do you know why my toast is so special? Are you ready? The butter is MELTED on my toast.

Now, this seems like a pretty simple thing, but apparently it is more difficult to do than one would think because seriously, numerous children--including my own--have commented on it.

So I decided to share my secret for getting butter to melt on toast. I know this is extremely generous of me, not to mention top-secret, but in the interest of mom-harmony world wide, I will share:

It's kind of difficult and requires a bit of practice, but here it is. You have to butter the toast AS SOON AS it pops out of the toaster. That's it people. Now you know the secret. Go forth and make your children happy.

PS: If you're making lots of toast and you don't get to the toast in time because you're also stirring eggs and flipping pancakes and turning sausage, just butter it as soon as you can and then stack the toast on top of the other toast. Keep stacking it. The heat from all the other toast seems to have this strange ability to melt the butter!

Have a beautiful, melted butter, kind of day.

The Ice Cream Man

We have a neighbor named Seth. Seth used to be the king's favorite neighbor because Seth worked for a beer distributor, and when they were changing out product, he would bring the king beer that was going to be thrown away. We all thought Seth was a pretty nice guy, but the king REALLY liked Seth. That is until a couple of weeks ago. Seth knocked on the door and this time asked for the kids. Seems ol' Seth is now working for an ice cream distributor, and he was changing out inventory. He invited the kids over to his truck to fill their arms with whatever ice cream they could carry! Yippee! Now we like Seth more than the king does!

A little side note: Seth says he makes more money pushing ice cream, even in the winter, than he ever did pushing beer. In other words, his best month of summer beer sales doesn't compare with his worst winter month of ice cream sales. I find that very interesting.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. I was a little concerned last night. The princess pulled a tooth yesterday afternoon. It occurred to me that both the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy would be visiting us in the middle of the night. I've heard that they don't get along very well, and I was sort of afraid I'd wake up in the middle of the night and have to break up a fight! Luckily, there was no incident, and I didn't see any rabbit fur or fairy dust around my house this morning. Thank goodness!

Survivor some more!

Spoiler Alert!

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About last week...Russel is brilliant. Tyson was undone by the master, and by his own stupidity. And that Colby dodged the bullet again...amazing.

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About this week, I will remind you that of our 5 original players in our pool, 4 are still in. We still have Daniel (who is the master at flying under the radar), Coach (who I really thought would be gone by now--and what a dork, he gives his "word" to two different people and then is tormented by this? He kids himself when he claims to be honorable), JT (who seems pretty safe on the hero side right now), and Russel. So this week it was down to Russel and Boston Rob. And I really like Boston Rob. But what a dork I am. As Jeff was reading off the votes I was hoping for Rob to win!!! Until about the second to the last vote when I got it together and remembered there's $50 on the line, and I stand a much lower chance of winning if Russel is gone!!!! I may be as dumb as Tyson! Luckily, Russel pulled out the win. He's the man!

Book List

I just noticed that the 13th book I read happened to be Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. Funny. And, if you're paying attention or even care, I have read a book by a male author this year, finally.

Arizona Trip

What follows are the highlights of the trip...there was food, fun, and baseball...not necessarily in that order. Judging by the exhaustion and grouchiness of the prince, they must have had a good time!

The Air and Space Museum

An older Air Force One.

This plane was used to fly dignitaries, like Kissinger, around.

The Guppy. Used to transport stuff.

Cosmonauts.

How do we know we're in Arizona? Check out the mammoth cactus.

The Fire Fighter Museum

I love all these photos. They remind me of the little boys they used to be. And they were just like little boys when they found out they could try on the gear. And check out Reed. His jacket isn't buttoned straight! Love it!

There was the Science Museum

They stumbled onto this museum on accident when the one they were looking for was closed due to a lack of funding. They enjoyed this one the most though. It was a happy accident.

Don't ask!

Morphing oneself.

Lying on a bed of nails.

I wanna try that too.

Apparently, it doesn't hurt.

There was swimming

I know, let's go all the way to Arizona to buy tennis balls so we can pay sales tax on them.
The king was never quite sure what the boys intended to do with these tennis balls. You'll see they do show up in the following hot tub photo. Hmmm...


One night, while hot tubbing, they met a guy who is a trainer for John Deere. The boys were thrilled when they told him they were in high school and he told them he was sure they were in college!