Stupid Is As Stupid Does...

I've really been oozing stupidity the last day or so.

Example #1: Get to church yesterday, walk in and sit on the side right in front of everyone. Luckily I move us to a different pew when everyone stood up so people wouldn't see all the "gear" the kids spread all of the pew because later I look down and Emma has a huge paper name tag stuck to her shirt. It's all disheveled since it went thru the washer and dryer. By some miracle (yeah church!) I was able to get it off. I think that's the first time I've ever been able to get one of those name label things off after it meets the dryer. Also lucky that I noticed this before we went up for the blessing. I can't have people thinking the "first lady" at church isn't organized and can't keep the kidlets spiffy. Litle do they know...ha, ha, ha.

Example #2: It was pouring this morning. I find the kids' Care Bear and Spiderman umbrellas and don't bother to think that I might need one. I forgot that when I drop Emma off at school we have to walk outside for a bit...oops! I didn't think it was fair to hog a 5 year old's umbrella, so I flung my bright pink coat over my head and ran (I'm sure I looked graceful like a gazelle). I really hope the principal wasn't in his office or he would have seen my attempt at running.

Example #3: I lost my cart at Walmart tonight. I was apparently so busy trying to keep my brain busy so that it wouldn't make me buy Chex Mix, that when I went to go get something probably 10 aisles away, I just left the cart there. Then I acted like I knew exactly where my cart was without looking obvious that I had no idea where it was. Then I was paranoid I had pushed someone else's cart instead and that half of the stuff I just got was in there instead. Then I wondered if maybe someone had taken it to play a trick. Finally I retraced my steps and there it was in the jeans section.

Another comment on the Chex Mix - I have a terrible addiction to it. That could explain some of the giggle in my wiggle. Anyway Parker is at his Tiger Scouts meeting the other night and they are learning about the food pyramid. One of the foods is Chex Mix and they are to figure out where it goes. Parker yells out so EVERYONE could hear. "My mom always eats the whole bag of the Chex Mix!"

Cheaper By the Dozen

ETA: Now there are only 11...one will be in the Paper Crafts Card Creations 6 magazine.

I ended up averaging one card an hour during the crop yesterday. I didn't win much, but feel like I got a lot done (for me). I was even happy with how they all turned out and managed to get a little natural light outside today when I took the pictures. It was little windy though so a couple kept blowing over into a leaf pile. If you want to see a bigger pic, just click on it.

After the crop the gang even went out for a margarita to celebrate Steph's bday. I will be posting that embarassing picture another time!

Parker also got his Tiger Scout badge this weekend at his Blue and Gold banquet and he was pretty excited about it. He's wanting it attached to his shirt asap...that is daddy's department!

Pick A Season Please!

I'll sum up the weather for you today:

First thunder and lightning...then...rain.....then....sleet.....then.....snow....then mud.....

BIG SIGH........

A Hoppin' Good Time!

Sunday was a whirlwind of Easter activity for the Hansens. Saturday actually was a little bit too. We colored eggs (even glittered some - not as messy as I anticipated) and then they each had to write notes to the Easter Bunny - one on the front door letting him know to come in and one on the fridge letting him know the eggs were in there. Since we woke to a dusting of snow on Sunday morning and the fact that we had to be at church by 8:00 and it was still freezing out, the bunny left them a note with their baskets telling them he hid them inside. They had fun with that and checked out their baskets. E got some Puppies in Your Pockets (her new fave toy for the week) and P got some Pokemon characters. They really aren't big candy lovers (besides gum) so E. Bunny goes light on the sweets and heavy on the plastics.

After church we headed to G and G Blue Houses for dinner. After eating Emma proceeds to fall asleep...sigh... We couldn't stay super long so we woke her up, let her get over being crabby and then headed outside to the freezing winds to go on another egg hunt. At the Blue House, the bunny leaves clues all over the yard leading them to their baskets at the end. After the hunt we quickly went back inside!

Mid afternoon we headed to G and G White House for supper and yet another egg hunt. Emma once again gets tired and I'm worried she's going to nod off. (They were up WAY too early that morning to see if the Easter bunny had been to our house). We usually try to go the egg hunt outside, but it was still freezing and most of the kids are pretty little so we did it inside. We proceeded to hide 100's of plastic eggs all over the house. There were so many that you ran out of places to hide them.

Later we headed back home and of course since the kids had school in the morning and were already tired from a busy weekend, they wouldn't fall asleep on the way home. Last week they didn't have school because of Spring Break and so Monday was a "wee bit" hard getting them up. I think they are both still a little tired. Monday we jumped back into kids stuff - E had baton and P had a Cub Scout meeting. Thank goodness nothing tonight...Mommy is pooped..although I'm still up way past my bedtime, but what's new?

Here are some pics from Easter...enjoy! (and of course couldn't get the kids to let me take their pics all spiffed up for church)

Naked Butts and Naked Feet

No I'm not talking about the Vegas trip. Although I promise sometime I will actually post some pics and some more funny stories about our doings while we were there.

We got our new fridge tonight. I finally have a fridge with the ice/water thingy in the door. I'm hoping this will help me to drink water. I'm horrible about drinking it and if I do actually drink something during the day it's usually pop or milk. The kids are little water drinking maniacs (remember pop is too spicy for them...sweet) and so we'll have to give them a "how-to" lesson on how to run it. Now that they are a little older this hopefully won't go horribly wrong. I say this because tonight Emma managed to ruin my wicker hamper by falling thru the side of it. It's like mom knew something like that might happen when I kept saying, "You don't play in the hamper."

P does a shower now so he went up after supper to take one and I hear him yelling for me. He's stark naked and says"Something just scared the pants right off of me." I have to admit I chuckled out loud. Since the water had been turned off, when turned on the shower it made a weird sound and the water didn't come out right away.

Other happenings this week included me battling one of my demons - naked feet! Ick! Last night was Maundy Thursday at church and they asked if the Hansen family would be one of the family to go up and get their feet washed. Steve is prez this year so we get to do lots of "things." I'm the "first lady" so I can't make him look bad so I say ok. It didn't go as bad as expected and I survived. It wasn't like our feet were shown up on a huge Jumbotron while they poured water on them. Whew! Parker looked so grown up doing it.

I also got to meet Cooper's namesake this week. My friend at work had twin boys on Tuesday and one she named Cooper. He was the more active one so I can see he's taking after my Coop. Hopefully he doesn't bite like mine does! Both babes were very cute!

Heading back home for Easter on Sunday with double meals as usual. There are also double Easter egg hunts and it's generally mass chaos, so of course lots of fun!

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

We are putting new tile in our kitchen and entry way and so the house is even messier than usual. Tonight Emma says "Wow, mom. We are doing a lot of new things to our house. It's just like Flip That House!"

Tonight Parker is reading me a book about sharks. It mentions that some eat sting rays. Parker says, "I should get a sting ray suit at the store. Then they wouldn't sting me. Wouldn't that be amazing? Or even a shark suit because sometimes they eat people on TV."

I guess I should be paying more attention to what they see on TV...although I don't like Jaws so not sure where he saw that....Grandma Beymer perhaps? :-)

The Quiet is Deafening....

**Card removed for publication in Paper Crafts' Card Creations 6.

**Card removed for publication in Cards Magazine - December 2008 issue.

Wow it's quiet around here. We are leaving for church in a couple minutes and I'm already ready and not having to pack the snack/activity bag or anything. Sounds like the kids are having a good time. We'll see how much they can talk G and G Blue House out of when they make their usual WM trip when P and E visit!

Had a great time at the crop as usual. They always give you tons of goodies and I even had my name drawn for one of the grand prizes. What's even more shocking is that Roni did too and her's was one of the first! And poor Steph didn't :-( I got a traveling organizer thingy. In theory it should help me bring less to crops....

Here is what I got done. The baby card I put together last minute so it was pretty simple. (The album was mostly completed (8 pages front and back), but I put some finishing touches on it and have just a little bit of journaling left to do). Sorry for the awful pics as usual. I really need to figure out how to run my camera and plus our house has absolutely no decent natural light. One of these days I'll actually be able to take some outside. Plus I was taking these last night so that wouldn't have helped either. The turtle card was in honor of Steph and her bad week.

Crop till you Drop

Heading to a crop tomorrow with the usual gang. I already know how it'll go! I'll bring way too much stuff, only get a couple things done and Steph will win a bunch of prizes!!

The kids left tonight to stay with G and G Blue House and G and G White House until Monday. Was a little worried they wouldn't be able to go (they were very excited), because Emma woke up under the weather this morning. I guess strep was going around at school and we didn't know if that's what she had. I looked up the symptoms and she didn't have a one of them. After a couple of hours she perked up and ate non-stop for the rest of the day and was feeling awesome. I think maybe she had some drainage issues that made her sick to her stomach? Who knows?

Thursday night took P to TKD with Emma in tow. Emma of course made new friends with a litle girl there and her Polly Pockets and Emma Pets got along fabulously. Parker is just LOVING his TKD and gets so excited and intense about it. Mommy is generally pretty laid back, but I'm a little stressed about the fact that he now needs a mouth guard and a nard guard since they spar (fight). What???? He's 7!!!!!

Fact of the Day

To burn the calories from one plain M&M candy, you need to walk the full length of a football field.

Losing Time

As with most families I'm sure, we are trying to get everyone adjusted to the time change. It's like Parker knew it was coming because he had been getting up by 5 every morning for the last week or so. One day I guess it was even 4, but he said he just read a book since no one else was up yet. Of course then last night night he crashed and was extremely emotional. Today my sweet Parker is back! Had Emma's PT Conference last night. Of course glowing comments! She is a little reading maniac and now tries to spell everything too. We also discussed how she is very much a perfectionist especially about her art and that she sometimes will freak out about it if something isn't quite right on it and she'll want to start over. I hope she lightens up a bit! Parker is also very serious about things, but miraculously not really a perfectionist.

Let's see what else has happened since I haven't posted in almost a week! Got the kids signed up for their summer/fall parks and rec stuff... The programs are cheap, but the $ does add up...ouch! They were able to get outside this weekend since it was pretty nice out and even ride their bikes (in the garage). It was in the 50's today here and I thought Emma was going to explode she was so excited. Plus our roads actually weren't even that muddy. Guess we've just been busy with the usual kid stuff. When I don't post, I forget what happens!

If anyone happens to see the April/May issue of Paper Crafts that just came out (I think WM might carry them besides scrap stores), on page 9 there is an advertisement for one of their special issues and it's my black and white picture frame in it.

Time to kiss the kidlets for bedtime and then settle down to watch BB. I already cheated though and looked to see what happened. Boring season in my opinion! (Too much reality TV on right now...it's seriously cutting into scrap time. Plus I have a TV in my scrap room, but it's just not the same!)

Wash Me!

Ok. The van has been splattered with mud forever, but at least you could tell what color it was. Our road had a bunch of mud spots again today and half the time I forget about them and they about pull me in to the ditch. Lauri was sick today so I picked up P from the bus. I had the "brilliant" idea to go a different way to pick up Emma from school. The road initially looked really great. As soon as I discovered it was too late to turn back, I hit mud, mud and more mud. I knew that if I let up on the gas at all I was stuck in the muck. I told P to be quiet, I tried not to hypervenilate and tried not to think about the fact that Steve is over an hour north of here right now. Luckily this gravel is not heavily traveled since I was all over the road. Plus parts of the road were only one lane because of the snow on the sides. Someone was looking down on me today because I managed to get thru it. At one time mud splashed so hard on my windshield I had to slam on my brakes to get it clean enough to see. (Luckily I stopped on a dry spot). I have cussed the van on a number of occasions (i.e. the numerous flat tires, the moody automatic doors and dashboard warning buttons), but she came thru today. When the kids and I went into town later for TKD and I had a church meeting, we went the usual way....no more brilliant ideas from me tonight! Plus by then the road had hardened (frozen) up a bit. I had to stop at the gas station to squeegee off the side windows and headlights so I could see when it got dark. (That's the second squeegee stop of the week). I was mortified that I was driving this. I broke down and did a quick rinse on the way home at the car wash. We'll see if I can open my doors tomorrow! P.S. My van is usually blue.

Today was Wacky Socks Wednesday for Emma. (They celebrate the birthday of Dr. Suess at school). She wore funky striped tights and looked like Pippi Longstocking. (I told her that and of course she had no idea who I was talking about). And as usual I forgot to take a picture! Maybe I'll dress her up another time just for the pic. Of course when we left daycare today she was in the best mood and even moving quickly and tripped on the sidewalk in her shoes boots and wiped out. She fell right on her hands and knees and I can't believe her hands weren't bloody. She ripped holes in the tights and all she ended up with was a tiny bloodless scrape...which of course required a bandaid and strawberry milk.

My thoughts on Big Brother... duh, like you didn't know that "surprise" was going to happen.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow...

Usually winter doesn't bother me much, but this year it's driving me insane. I know I'm not the only one!!! It finally warmed up this weekend, but this caused melting which is reeking havoc on parts of the house. It's also destroying the gravel road and this weekend if you stopped in the road, you were stuck. I just kept the pedal down on the Sedona and hoped I didn't meet anyone (since half the time you had to drive on the wrong side) and made it home. Then last night it gets cold and snows/ices again. Normally my drive takes 25-30 minutes to work. Today over an hour and a half. It wasn't too bad till I got to town. Then the road I take is extremely hilly and I think half of the city was stuck on that road today. I then turned around and went a different way. Still slow going, but FINALLY I got there. I have been taking that road for probably 8 years and have never seen that happen before. There are also areas that are starting to flood..sigh... I also constantly wear mud on the back of my pants. Taking P into TKD tonight I noticed that I couldn't see much of anything on the road in the dark. I was hoping something hadn't happened to the van. (It's been a little moody lately). Got to town and realized that my headlights were covered in mud. Again sigh...

Well enough whining I'm off to bed. Busy week again. Hopefully the kids have a full day of school tomorrow. Emma's ended up being cancelled. They are now both going into June.

Ask and You Shall Be Answered

Parker is becoming a bit more of the usual 7 year old. Arguing with us more and not listening as much. I still can't complain though most of the time. Going to his Cub Scouts meeting and seeing some of the kids running around and the parents doing nothing, makes me appreciate him even more! Anyway we have begun some home improvement projects around the house (ok Steve has). Our house is 30 years old and most stuff still seem original so it's time for some new stuff before the whole house falls apart. Plus all of this snow, rain, wind, melting we've had has wrecked havoc on the outside. The first job is new tile in the kitchen, entry way and around the woodburning stove. Steve was grouting yesterday and Parker kept walking on it and he kept getting cussed. Steve finally asked him, "How many times do I have to tell you now to do that?" Very seriously P answered. "I know it was less than 50."

Lets see what else has been happening around here. I haven't felt quite tip top the last few days. Or maybe it's like Wayne from Wayne's World. "I thought I had mono once, but it turned out I was just really, really bored." Plus being back in the real world after having a few days in Vegas, it takes you a bit to get your bearings back. I know I promised some pictures! I promise I'll get to it. I'm horrible about doing anything with the camera - this includes taking decent pictures, cleaning them up, resizing, emailing, getting printed etc.

We've just been busy with the usualy kids stuff. Plus I was extra busy with work this week. P has been working hard on his yellow belt (He is so obsessed with TKD) and E has been a creating maniac. I just am amazed at what she draws and creates. I'll try to get some of that posted soon too. Got the official word she's in year round school for K this summer. P has intersession the next two weeks at school.

I got some exciting news on Friday. I got a couple layouts picked up for Memory Makers Readers Idea Book. They kept bouncing back while I was in Vegas so I was afraid I'd missed the deadline. One is about my Grandma Gert (who passed away last summer) and so I am especially excited about that one. Of course in scrap mag world time this won't be out till later in 2008. I wasn't very creative in February, although I did finally clean up my scrap room and even vaccummed, so I need to get back at in March. I didn't get much picked up in February, but I need to get some new stuff done in order to get a chance to get something picked! (Alhtough the pages I got picked up I made probably 6 months ago plus) Going to a couple crops in March so that will help too!