Drawing Diva

I just had to share a picture Emma drew on her Doodle thing, before she erases it. I'm amazed with some of the details she comes up with on her pictures. I can't draw to save my life and neither can Steve. At her age, Parker wouldn't even pick up a crayon. I'm also sharing a little paper mache purse I found at HL for around $3 (even came with the beaded handle) that I altered today.

Tae Kwen Do with a Cub Scout Chaser

I swear ever activity my kids have ever been in always happens on Monday. Monday's are always manic, but that means the rest of the week is not as crazy, so when we get thru Monday's the rest of the week is a breeze!

Steve took E to her baton/tumbling and he said she did a good job paying attention tonight - whew! She also was going crazy with her twirling and Ms. Jan noticed how good she was doing again. With her personality (and the fact that she likes to be in the spotlight) I think baton is a good fit for her.

P had his 2nd TKD class again tonight and is still enjoying it. It's pretty intense (discipline, paying attention etc). A lot of the stretches and moves they do I think I'd fall right on my a$$ if I tried. He would probably have loved it if I had done it...probably should have since I am extremely out of shape. He also had his Cub Scout pack meeting tonight. It started at the exact time that the TKD ended. We did a quick costume change and got there just a little late. (The first part of the meeting is pretty much just spent getting the kids quiet anyway). We get there and the school is locked - argh! Luckily I had a cell # for someone in there and they came down to get us. Tonight he got his Bobcat badge and he was super excited about that. He wanted it attached immediately. I told him it'd probably be his dad that would have to do that :-) I also included a pic of him rolling a potato with his nose tonight (one of the games they played) and some from the bday party and Night Eyes. Enjoy!

The Party's Over....

His bday party today went off without a hitch. The weather was even nice enough that the kids got to play outside for awhile (sorry Steph about the grass stains on P and R's church pants). He got the loot he wanted - Pokemon, Ben 10, a couple Game Boy games and some dinosaurs. He carried everything around with him till bedtime and about half of the stuff is sleeping with him tonight. I might update with some photos tomorrow - I'm too tired to mess with that tonight - but in all honesty I didn't get a whole lot of pics taken. But I know Grandma White House did...whew!

The kids had a busy Saturday too. They had a bday party at BK on Saturday morning for a kid from daycare and came home with a couple cool toys that haven't left their sides much. We then went to Night Eyes at the zoo that afternoon. The weather was awesome. Emma's costume was kind of skimpy so I had her wear a turtleneck under it and she got hot. For those of you that don't know, Night Eyes is trick-or-treating at the zoo along with ice cream, free bounce house stuff and other things for them to do. For $3 it's a great deal! We still have at least 3 more T or T things going on in the next week, so I figured we'd better spread this stuff out a bit. At least the kids get a lot of costume usage!

Well I'm off to bed...cooking and cleaning for this party wore me out. I'm not used to it! (I will post my potato soup recipe this week for those that are interested too)

You Say It's Your Birthday!

The hunting clothes were a bit hit (once he figured our what they were...lol)!! Here are some pics from this morning. Tomorrow we are going to a bday party at BK in the morning and planning to go to Night Eyes at the zoo in the afternoon since the weather is supposed to be nice....sometime I need to clean for Sunday, but I'll procrastinate on that as much as possible. Picked up a couple fun things tonight at HL to alter. Of course it took 20 minutes at the check out aisle. If everything wasn't on sale, I'd be upset.

Next Saturday night Steve and I are going to a Halloween Party. The kids are going to Auntie Steph's house (sweet). We're going as Dwight and Angela from The Office. Steve is already working on his props (Schrute bucks, sideburns, etc).

That's about all to report. Emma said she was on red today, but there was no note...so trying to figure out if she's teasing us about getting in trouble. She is quite the actress sometimes.

Karate Chop!

Tonight was P's first night of Tae Kwon Do. He had wanted to do it a couple months ago, but it interfered with soccer. This might replace wrestling for the winter activity this year...whew! The Parks and Rec dept puts it on for a small fee, plus it's on our side of town which is nice. He was very excited to get to do "karate." I'm sure he thought all they'd do is run around and karate chop each other. I only saw about the last 15 minutes, but fortunately there was no crazy karate chopping. He seems to like it and they were helping him a lot. It's a beginners class, but there is a huge variety in ages. Of course as soon as class was over, Aiden and Parker started karate chopping each other.... I have a feeling Daddy might get chopped below the belt sometime...hee hee...

Tomorrow Parker turns the big 0-7! Hard to believe! He wants to go hunting with daddy so Steve picked out some clothes for him for his present- coat, boots, gloves and of course the orange vest and hat. We already informed him he would not be carrying a gun. He did offer to be the dog and help find the pheasants! Right now I have cupcakes in the oven so he can celebrate at Lauri's after school and blow out a candle on a cupcake in the morning. Hopefully the kids want to get up tomorrow. They have both been having a hard time getting up. It's like they know daylight savings time is coming. At school treats have to be pre-packaged so Little Debbies it is! Also need treats for Sunday School. Parker will get a lot of sugar in the next few days!!!

On the scrap front, got a couple more things (including a beaded bracelet) picked up for Giftmaker and a picture frame for Paper Crafts. I was very happy with the frame and so it's nice when someone loves it back! I used some Basic Grey rubons I forgot I had and they were perfect for it. I celebrated by going to HL today...oops spent too much again.

P.S. We had a crisis on our hands. Gameboy had been lost for a couple days, but Daddy saved the day and found him in the couch cushions...crisis averted!

I Made Up Some Sign Language

Emma in the tub tonight - "Mom. When you shrug your shoulders that means I don't know. That's sign language, I made that up."

Had Parker's last soccer game tonight - it was muddy! They killed the other team again. At this point, it's actually kind of embarassing. The coach is now trying to emphasize sportmanship with them, since they are getting a little "over confident" now. Tomorrow is Emma's sharing day at school and since they are learning about the letter T, she wants to bring her big red Trex that roars. She said the boys will think it's pretty awesome!

Trying to think of what else has been happening besides rain. We pretty much just stayed inside yesterday after church (the kids sang at church and Emma just put a big grumpy face on - she was belting it out in practice..err..) . I made a few scrap things - most I was even happy with! Now we'll see if they get any love or not.... Peyton and Rylan came to visit most of the day on Saturday. In the afternoon all the kids went outside which means Steve watched the kids most of the time (they may have gotten just a tiny bit muddy).

Red Light, Green Light

Tuesday was Parker's first day back at school. Apparently he was a little rusty, since he came home bummed that he was on yellow. He said he had laughed at something someone did in class. Wednesday he was apparently a little rusty again....this time then he moved to red. He shouted out an answer to a question really loud I guess. One thing about Parker is he's pretty honest and not deceitful (yet). He fesses up when he gets in trouble. He did get banished from gameboy Wednesday night. I consider these "friendly fire" infractions. Meaning he wasn't being mean, a bully, lying, shoving etc. and that they were for talking, being goofy etc. If he was being mean, the punishment would have been worse at home. Emma is on yellow every once in awhile and fesses up too - hers are usually talking related. Her number got lost that goes on the stop light, so she told Mrs. Sellers that she could never be on yellow or red anymore...she's a thinker! Pretty quiet nights here kid-wise this week. We have our last soccer game on Monday.

Last night at work was the annual "Raffle Dazzle" party for United Way. People create gift baskets and then you buy tickets for to try to win them (of course I won nothing). There is also free food and drinks involved so of course I had to go! I didn't mean to stay the whole time, but couldn't let my tickets go to waste! Plus Daddy could get some kid time in since he'd been gone for a few days.

Today I went to the Scrapbook convention that was downtown. A project I thought I'd have to work on today got delayed till Monday so I decided to take the afternoon off to go. I didn't want to try to find parking so I walked from work. I had a sweatshirt on so was good and sweaty by the time I got there. I took the skywalk, but I work on the south side and it was on the north side so it was a pretty good jaunt. It's a really long jaunt back too - when you're hands are full of purchases. I bought a new trimmer (50 percent off) so hoping I like it. I've never been happy with my other one and I've had it for a few years, so I treated myself. Also got some things to alter. Also got some cute Doodlebug glitter. (Most of my stuff I bought was at the MB booth - I could just go to their store since it's 10 miles from there..duh) There were quite a few cute scrapping supplies I haven't found in the stores around here, but I was good and said no to most of it. There was a booth that mostly Scenic Route paper (one of my faves) and I even passed on it - mostly because I couldn't decide and wanted it all! Feeling guilty about how much $$ I spent then I got home and found out how much I'm getting paid for a couple cards and all was well again :-)

Tomorrow Peyton and Rylan are coming for the day. P and E are of course excited. Hopefully it's nice out and they can all burn some energy outside. I'll try to keep an eye on them on occasion!! Steve will be home and I'll try not to leave all the watching to him. I am hoping though to get some scrap stuff done. There are some deadlines coming I'd like to make some things for.

Over and out!

Better Late Than Never

I worried that the kids wouldn't get enough sleep last night because of not getting home till 9 last night. Turns out there was no need to worry. I woke up at 7 today and they were still sleeping. The bus comes at 7:05...so that obviously wasn't going to happen. Right after I got up P and E woke up too. P was all bummed because I had told him he could sleep till 6:30 and he slept till 7 instead. He is just like Steve... a morning person. It can get annoying sometimes, although at least on the weekends Steve is already up when they get up..so no point in me getting up so early too!! More than once Parker has told me I'm wasting the day and that I sleep too much. Emma is a little more like me...we hate the morning. I really thought I had turned the alarm clock on. Oh well...we all eventually got to school and work. Steve is usually the one that makes sure we're up. We ate on TV trays the whole time he was gone...we're such rebels!

Go Emma...Go Emma.... (shameless bragging)

Tonight was the usual Manic Monday. It was more manic than usual though because Steve is out of town and E's parent/teacher conference was tonight too. We have nothing going on the rest of the week...yeah!

Left work early to get everyone picked up and to baton/tumbling. I was watching and Emma wasn't paying much attention to what was going on - we are still working on the focusing part sometimes. Then they started doing the helicopters (it's what I call the regular baton twirl) and she starts going to town. The owner even noticed and had her stand in front and show everyone and then she did it with her left hand too. To be noticed by her is a pretty big deal. She runs a huge baton/dance place nearby and has all the twirlers at the big colleges around here were taught by her. This year's Miss XXXXXXX was taught by her too. Although not sure how good I'd want Miss Noodle to be since if she turns out to be pretty good in a few years, that'd mean competition team and more scheduling!!

Anyway back to the bragging... so we had time to kill between baton and conferences so we went to McD's for quite awhile. No playland, but the kids sat pretty quiet and kept themselves entertained. We get to conferences about 7:20 - ours was at 7:30. They were running behind (they always are). This weird man was sitting beside us and was the 7:15. Finally he went in and I swear he stayed in there as long as possible just to make us wait. It was at least 8:15 before we finally got in there. The kids didn't end up in bed till 9, so good luck teachers tomorrow! (P starts back to school tomorrow) The kids did really well considering we sat out in the hall with nothing to do for at least an hour. I received glowing reviews on Emma and she seems to have sucked everyone in with her cuteness. We talked a little about her moods, looks she gives you etc and how she can sometimes be a bit stubborn....not sure who she'd get that from?? She gets along very well with the other kids and the teacher kept going on about how smart E is. She got a perfect score on a reading assessment test and has been reading a bunch of stuff around the room. I knew she understood rhyming since she helped P when he was in presechool. I'm also amazed about how detailed her drawings are. They are going to do some extra reading work with her. I sometimes think that E knows more than she lets on and the teacher agreed. I think sometimes she likes to act all helpless and dumb. Isn't it too early to act that way???

Ok. I'll stop bragging :-) Just proud!

When the Cat's Away the Mice Will Have Problems

The other weekend Steve was gone and we had a monsoon and then I got a flat tire. Steve leaves yesterday morning and when we get back from soccer and running errands the toilet won't flush. Luckily we have a couple of spares! Then this morning I hurt my neck/shoulder yet again. I'm averaging about every week on this anymore. I'll be fine by tomorrow. Then we get home from church and I pull into the garage. I immediately realize we're locked out. I had locked the door between the garage and house last night since Steve was gone and I forgot to unlock it. Luckily I remembered where the extra key was.

The neighbor girl who is 10 is over playing with the kids right now. I even made them cookies! I'm hiding out in my scrap room and working on some projects. I got a card picked up for Giftmaker and they asked that I make a gift box to go with it. Almost done with it and even happy with how it turned out. I got my advanced copy of the November issue of Memory Makers magazine in the mail yesterday that features Miss E dressed up as Sackajawea. Of course Hansen is spelled wrong in one spot in the mag. Not sure why Hansen is so hard to spell..... Oh well, just excited to be in there! I'll post a shot of it when I'm able. The most exciting part though is I cleaned my room and I can get to my desk again!!!!

We Rock!!

Haven't posted in a few days, but not much out of the ordinary going on. Parker doesn't have school this week so he's pretty much just been chillin' at Lauri's. Lauri had to take Wednesday off so I stayed home. We ran a bunch of errands in the morning, he spent his Tooth Fairy $ on a Starlee (don't ask) and Emma got out of school early at 1 so we stopped by on the way home to get her. I love picking the kids up from school. I wish I could do that more often :-(

Parker had one of his last soccer games on Thursday night. I even remembered to bring my camera. Of course I think I had it on the wrong setting for action photos, so most are a little blurry! Once again they smoked the other team. They don't get obnoxious about it although I did chuckle when Aiden (Parker's buddy) turned to us, held up his fist and said "We rock!" Here are some various pics from the game - we're purple. Of course most are off center...I'll blame that on Emma since she kept standing in front of me :-) Aiden is the kid making the face and Emma is with Aiden's brother Elijah. They have become pretty good buddies too. The other pic of Emma was taken by their mom.

Steve leaves for his hunting trip tomorrow so the kids and I will pretty much just run amuck while he's gone. Lots of mac and cheese and chicken nugs.

Tooth Fairy 101 Basics - I received an F

Well tooth fairy didn't do so well. Here I posted that I needed to remember to be the "fairy" and then I totally spaced it off and went to bed. Parker woke up this morning and checked. Tooth was still there. Luckily he wasn't too upset. I told him that sometimes that happens, especially if the tooth fairy had a busy night. It was still dark out so the tooth fairy was still on her way. (I can remember the tooth fairy dumping my tooth down the drain once...mom) I went and wrote a note that said she was pretty busy and that he had 2,543 teeth to pick up and that was a new record. Fairy also felt guilty so I left a 5 bill dollar (that's what P calls it) Of course he wants to get a Ben 10 guy with it. Last time tooth fairy visited P forgot to even check. I wasn't so lucky this time! He also asked me if the Tooth Fairy had helpers and when I said I didn't know he said, "Well I bet God would know."

Had another Manic Monday - with the usual work craziness followed by the sports/baton craziness and ending with a church meeting. There were some older kids that kept messing around during their soccer practice (I think it was kids that were practicing after them and kids of some of the parents there) and one kid kicked the ball about 2 feet from Parker and hit him in the eye and it even knocked him off his feet. He was worried about "bleeds", but doesn't look like he'll even have a shiner. I told the older kids to get off the field. I'm sure I ticked some people off but too bad.

Not much to report on Miss E. We've been playing a lot of Ponyville and I'm not sure how many more fake milkshakes and suckers I can take!