Happy Halloween!

Shootin' Hoops

The princess decided to play basketball this year. Apart from basketball units in PE, she's never played. But there was the chance to play the 8th grade boys later in the season, so she was inspired. She made the competition team, and they had their first game Saturday. It wasn't pretty. They got clobbered. But they did improve as the game went on, and to her credit, the princess scored the team's first basket! The coach plays them in the 1st and 3rd or 2nd and 4th quarters. He played the princess in the 2nd and 4th so she had a little time to see how a game is actually played before she was put in. She was very nervous. It was kind of cute. But once she was on the floor she was all in, going hard. She did great!

My camera does not take good pictures in gyms so I won't be taking the camera to most games. These may be the only shots you get this year.

Watching 1st quarter.

She's the one nervously chewing ALL her fingernails.

A little defense.


Waiting for the pass.

That ball is headed her way. She did catch it!

You can barely see her, but I had to post this of her taking a shot.

This one didn't go in.

Afterward, with the coach.

I asked if he yelled at them.

She said, "No. But he did talk firmly."

Four games this week! Wish her luck!

Rock On Update

When I left for work Friday with all the makeup and hair going on, the king was still sleeping. (We had to be at school at 6:45 for early morning basketball practice.) When we got home I saw him look at me funny, but to his credit, he didn't say anything. Later I explained why I was looking so stunning. He replied, "Well, I was wondering. I thought maybe you had a boyfriend." I said, "I do. His name is Jon Bon Jovi!" Later I mentioned that I would be cleaning most of it off before we headed out to the football game. Again, to his credit, he said, "Good. I didn't want to say anything, but I was hoping you weren't going to the game like that." After almost 20 years of marriage he's learned a thing or two! :)

Let's have a snack.

"Hey Mom, we're going to run to the store and get something to eat."

They came back with this "snack". Let's see...jalapeno bread, large orange sodas, Oreos, Cheetos, dip, some little packages of granola. Good thing they both have a job to buy these snacks and that they can use their employee discount!

That's WHO????

In case you missed this news item, Steven Tyler took a spill the other day, lost a couple of teeth and needed stitches. He claims to have been sober but suffering from food poisoning when he decided to shower, passed out, and woke up like this. Hmmm...

Doesn't he kind of look like the homeless guy who recently got the big annoucing job with one of the tv networks because of his golden voice? Dude definitely doesn't look like Steven Tyler!

Rock On!

This week was Drug Awareness week at school. We wore black on Monday to "black out drugs", sweats Tuesday because "being drug-free is no sweat", we wore red on Wednesday and caps on Thursday. Yesterday was dress like a rock-star day "Rock out drugs", maybe? I decided to get some 80's big hair, makeup, and bling. I met one of the members of KISS at school so the paparazzi were all over us! I think maybe I look more like a vampire though...just need some fangs. Below are the lessons I learned from this rock-n-roll experience. (And yes, the irony of dressing as rockers who are often drug-users was not lost on adults at school!)

Lessons learned:

1. I will always pose like this from now on. Look how thin my face looks!

2. It takes a lot of makeup and hairspray to look like this. It was expensive to beautify in the 80's!

3. It took a lot of time to do this hair and make up. Apparently I had more time in the 80's too!

That Bart Simpson!

Pack The Place In Pink

Last night was the annual Pack The Place in Pink event at our high school. This is the 5th year. It doubles in size each year. We weren't filled to the rafters last night, but we were close. They raised tens of thousands of dollars with this event this year. The football players alone raised $1800 selling pink "live strong-type" brackets. The money used to be donated to the Susan G. Komen fund, but now only a small portion goes there. The rest stays in our community to help local families with expenses related to cancer--any cancer. It's an amazing event, and we are proud to support it.

The mayor, honoring our ladies volleyball coach (in dark pink in the background), who started this event and continues to lead the way. In the background, standing on the right are the football players who will next present her with their big check.

The mayor and the coach. She hugged everyone!

A great crowd of pink from both sides of town.

I think the prince and Lakota have an important cheer job here.

I think they are making sure none of the cheerleaders have their skirts stuck in their underware.

The band, rockin' the pink.

Oh yes, there was a volleyball game too.

We lost the match but did win one game.

A little cheer action.

Okay, now they are doing what they do best.

Smile boys! I'm sure their skirts are fine.

Cute Little Booger Heads

Halloween parties at school today. Guess what Isaiah and Ariana are going to be!

Cheer Work

Every once in awhile the prince tells me, "I'm staying after school to work on cheer posters." I never truly appreciated this task until I saw this photo of them working on posters. Wowzers! The posters always look really, really nice. The prince insists that's because they girls don't let him write on the posters. He's in charge of getting more paint and poster paper when they run low! Trust me, those are smart girls!

"I've Come To DANCE, DANCE, DANCE, DANCE"

Dance weekend was another big success. We are all exhausted, but the girls learned a lot, and we moms got to spend a lot of time with our butts on the hard gym floors, which isn't as easy as it was when we were kids. I didn't take any photos of the princess in class. I have one video I might post later. That's the way it went this year!

Last year our best quote came from the hip hop teacher who often talked about "Michael Jackson Rest In Peace". This year my favorite came from the Modern dance teacher when she said, in a mock whisper, "You're not in ballet class. You don't have to dance like automatronic robots. You can dance like humans." Ouch!

Most of the girls after a ballet class.

The princess is back row, far left.

Katie and the princess.

Katie is Clara in the Nutcracker this year.

The princess and her competition team.

An exhausted looking dance mom

and her beautiful daughter.

Until next year....

WHAT?

Did I say, "next year"????

And we're off..

The princess and I are headed off today with our bffs for a three-day dance workshop. It's the best dance money can buy, and I serve as a chaperon, chauffeur, and lunch lady...or is it bag lady...umm, I help make the sack lunches! ;) See you next week!

Perfection!

This is one of my students. He swears it'll be okay with his mom if I put him on my blog. Is he wearing the perfect shirt for his 24-hour baby assignment or what??? I love my job!

Too True

Nuff said.

Fall Blooms

The geranium came inside yesterday. It is looking good, but I know if can't take much more of the cold, and it's going to need more water too. For a couple of weeks I'll have the pink petals on my carpet, and then we won't see anymore blooms until spring. I think I've had this plant about 5 years now! It's a keeper.

Friday Night Cheer

Friday night was Pack the Stadium in Pink night at the game.

Even the football players were sporting pink socks!

Tough enough to wear pink!

Man Cave

The king loves his garage. He spends hours out there cleaning, organizing, rearranging. This summer, after his mom decided to scale down, he inherited some more garage stuff. That meant he had to rearrange the garage again, buy more supplies to organize with, and do lots of hammering. He was in HEAVEN!! Here is the final result. Pretty sweet, huh?

Happy Birthday Marty!

Happy Birthday Marty!

It sure would be nice if you saved us some cake.

We like cake. A lot.

Have a wonderful day, and year!

And yes, we love you too.

Congratualtions Daniel!

Congratulations to Daniel who qualified to go to the state tournament in cross country yesterday! To top it all off, he even got a personal best time in the race! He has worked so hard this year, even running daily last summer when he didn't have to! All that hard work has paid off! Did I mention he's only a sophomore! Run Hard, Daniel!

I stole this photo from MB's blog.

Not taken yesterday.

Basketball???

Seriously? Just get a yellow "Taxi" light I can put on top of my car. The princess has decided to add basketball to her already busy schedule. She's NEVER played basketball except during PE, but this year, "Lots of my friends are playing, and they don't have enough people, and the coach said it's not too late to start, and ..." Seriously??? So tomorrow she will have to have a sports physical (volleyball doesn't start until February, so I wasn't thinking she'd need it yet). Practices are after school but games are all over the place...some after school, some on Saturdays. She'll miss a couple of dance classes too. I'm not sure when she'll get her homework done. Really, this is crazy. No, wait. I am crazy!

Those of you who know the princess know that she hates to not be good at something. If she's going to be watched, she wants to make sure she doesn't look foolish. That was her biggest fear with basketball, and I reminded her that she'll be playing with and against girls who have been playing for years. She will not be the best player on the team. I cautioned her to do this only if she's in it for fun and to learn something. Oh, and no quitting. If she shows up once, she'll complete the season. I'm kind of like June Cleaver.

Oh yeah, and I'm not buying any fancy, hightop basketball shoes for her either. Yeah, just like June Cleaver.

Wish us luck!

(Check it out: this post became all about me! But that seems only fair since this will impact my life as much as hers.)

Volleyball

Long story, but somehow, the princess had some friends over for a little volleyball action on Saturday. The gal in red played on a traveling team last year and has some mad skills, so she was giving them pointers. The girls hung out, played volleyball, walked to the park, ate some pizza, played some more volleyball, played a little badminton, and talked about school and boys. Good times!

That Sisco

Yesterday the princess was baking a cake in her FACS class (the same class where she had the baby awhile ago). She was telling me, "First we had to get the pan ready the old-fashioned way. You know, rub it with that Sisco and flour it."

That's pretty old-fashioned if you aren't even familiar with the work "Crisco"! I'm still laughing at that one.

I do wonder why the teacher is having them do that though. In our house it's Pam or nothing.

Happy Birthday Kathi!

Happy Birthday to Cool Aunt Kathi!

Here's to a another great year.

Much love!

Happy Birthday Robin!

Happy Birthday Robin!

Love ya!

Corn Maze

Last night Christian and the princess got it in their heads that they wanted to go to the corn maze. They were unsuccessful in talking any of their parents into taking them, but they did talk their brothers into going. So at 8:00 they headed out...dark of night...ground full of mud from all the rain the previous 2 days...

The boys got as far as the ticket booth and decided it was too muddy. They instead took their entrance money to the grocery store for snacks and told the girls to call when they were done. The girls trudged on for a bit but soon decided it was too muddy and called the boys for a ride.

No photos of the corn maze, but here are their shoes today!

The prince's shoes aren't too bad...most of the mud is that grey pile to the left of the shoe ON MY FLOOR!

The princess' shoes, much worse, IN MY SINK!

I moved both sets of shoes to the garage. They can clean their own shoes, thank you very much!

Homecoming Victory!

Congratulations to the Falcons on their first win of the season. Even better that it was for homecoming! The half-time entertainment by the cheerleaders was cancelled because the turf was too wet, which made it too dangerous. Bummer. Today is the Falcon feed, parade, and other fun. Unfortunately it's POURING rain right now. That's going to make for some cold seniors wearing togas!

Irony

Here's a prime example of irony for you compliments of middle school stupidity: irony is when a mom calls the school to say that her daughter is being bullied by another student via text messages. The on-campus deputy then visits with the daughter and asks to check her phone. Turns out there are more bullying messages from the daughter's phone to the girl than the other way around. The deputy then has to call the mom, tell her what she has found, and ask if she still wants to proceed.

Doctor's Orders

I had my yearly check-up yesterday. I am very healthy, with one exception. I need more vitamin D. Clearly that means I need more time in the sun, which means I need to take more cruises! I'm on it!

Genetics

Different dads who look strikingly similar and moms who are sisters and look similar gives you cousins who look like sisters. It doesn't hurt that they have colored and cut their hair in the same fashion! Rock on, pretty girls!

About The Thornbirds

I must do a quick review (blasting) of The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough. Yes the same Thornbirds that we all read about 20 years ago and was made into a hugely popular mini-series with Richard Chamberlain. I read this book years ago, and I liked it just fine. It wasn't one of my favorites, but I didn't hate it. I watched the mini-series and thought it was fine too. It was no Roots, but it was fine. So MB gave me the book to re-read, and I fully expected to like it again. If you look on my book list you'll see that in fact, I did NOT like it again. I've given it one star. I did toy with giving it two stars, but I just couldn't do it. I found the LOOOOOONG descriptions of the Australian outback boring. I like only two characters--Justine and Anne. Everyone else I wanted to grab by the shoulders and yell, "Get over yourselves!!!" Even the brothers needed a good, swift kick in the pants. I could go on and on and on about how annoying they all were, but I'll stop. It was 700 pages of mostly blah, though the last 100 pages or so almost redeemed it. Almost! It all does lead me to believe that in January, I might need to update my rating system. Maybe a 4 star system would be better. If I had a 4 star system, this book would have gotten 2 stars.

Amanda

Look who is fresman homecoming princess!

Woot, woot!

Amen

And the Lord looked down on the middle-aged, white lady who was about to head to Walmart on a Saturday afternoon on the first of the month and smiled. "Today I shall give her everything she could want in a Walmart experience." And it was so. She got a really close parking spot, the store was NOT crowded as she was expecting, the shelves were stocked, people did not park in the middle of the aisle, she only saw one person she knew from work while not wearing makeup, there was no line at the deli, there was only one person in front of her at the check out, and she got a fast checker. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she looked up to the Heavens and whispered, "Thank You." The Lord smiled, and it was good. Amen. (True story.)

October 1

Maybe it's just me, but it seems wrong that I just cleaned my front porch area and put up my Halloween stuff in the 91* heat! I'm not complaining; we have had the nicest fall! I'm sure we'll pay for it this winter, but man, oh, man...you should have been here in September! Awesome!