Kitsch Queen

My long-time best friend *M* from back home calls herself the "kitsch queen". But she has always had awesome taste so she's being modest. She does send veyr fun packages though and you just NEVER know what you're going to get when you open them. Todays' box had 5 pez dispensers for the kids for Easter, 2 boxes of Peeps (can't have Easter without them!), a check for G.S. cookies, a St. Patricks Day set of dishtowels complete with a shamrock cookie cutter, a see-through plastic tote bag with ribbon handles with pictures of us on the front, 3 cards, a touching & beautiful "friends" photo frame, a heart birthstone necklace (for me), a Webkinz postal code (for my daughter), and these ADORABLE and unique plates for my children:

And she didn't even know we were running low on kids plates. Man, I'm really spoiled with that one. lol

Great imagination...

My oldest is 10 and he has a quick wit about him. The kind of wit that's fun when other people's kids have it, but not always as amusing when it's your own. Especially when they're still in the stages of figuring out what's taboo and what "good timing" is. For example, when mom has asked you to go to bed 5 times, it's probably NOT a good time to play a practical joke. I try so hard to keep calm and rational so I don't crush his spirits. Lately I've really been trying to appreciate him and his humor and who he is becoming as a person. With 5 it's easy to just clump them together into one herd of children but they really are 5 special & unique people. It's awesome.

So today, when the stick-in-the-mud side of me grew frustrated that he brought humor into his schooling, the gentler softer side of me knew that it was time to loosen up and laugh. He really is a funny kid!

The following is a drawing (using Paint, he much prefers doing things on the computer) my oldest did when prompted to draw the characters of the story of Anansi the spider, a character from West African lore we read about in our Story of the Word curriculum today. The kids were asked to draw a picture of Anansi with a banana, potato, & a few grains of rice. This was my sons interpretation. He thought the potato he tried to draw looked like Elvis and then the rice grain he drew first looked like it had glasses. I thought the banana was especially good and he added the words to a song we used to sing all the time when he was really little.

Snoopy's in the genes!

When I was in elementary school I wanted the part of Snoopy in the school play SOOO bad I could taste it! Almost as bad as when I wanted the part of Wendy in Peter Pan. But, my low voice didn't cost me the part of Snoopy because he didn't speak, just held up signs. I LOVED being the comic relief! I remember my mom putting my hair into pig tails dog ears. I even remember calling my grandmother and excitingly telling her I got the part! To have that excitement again over something so small!

A couple of weeks ago I read a 4-H e-mail that there was going to be a show in town for our county. In our 4-H group they were casting a Peanuts play. I asked my oldest if he wanted to be in it (the rest are Cloverbuds or younger) & he said he did. I asked which part he'd want and he immediately said "Snoopy!". Later on I told him I was Snoopy too, pretty cool. Well, he got the part because we're probably the only family up as late as the time that the e-mail came.

So, I had less than 2 weeks to get creative and make a Snoopy costume. I have a lot of creativity in my head folks but executing is a very different story for me. But, I'm proud of the end result:

It was cute and all but it was L---O----N-----G. And apparently the teenagers in officer positions thought a good way to entertain us all was to drink soda and belch into the microphone for laughs. I'm.dead.serious. Yeah.

I think this picture illustrates best how dad, the kids, & I felt by the time it was over:

So, being the corny folk we are (it really rubs off on the youngin's which is quite fun to watch!), I had to take this shot right before we left. He had gotten his tail stuck in the door and we all thought this was hilarious. Maybe we were just so happy to be outside again! ;-)

*No fictional dogs or real children were harmed in these photos*

**Please ignore how filthy my van is**

Have a great weekend!!!

Painting with children

OK so I took Dys' advice and decided to take on more household projects with my kids. Our 2yo is just not ready to paint (although he thinks he is) so while the others were helping I gave baby *T* a clean paint brush with a bowl of water and a clean wall to "paint". All good, right? Would I be blogging about it if it was? LOL!

So, I'm deep in paint-land thinking to myself, "Wow, this isn't so bad after all. Everyone is doing a great job!". Then I turn around. Somehow little Mr. Sneaks-a-lot got his little brush into the rolling pan. And so he painted a wall we didn't have any intentions on painting.

But, it wasn't that bad.

And he was SO happy.

And it was my risk.

So, we just laughed and took lots of pictures. Looking at that wall makes me smile.

Enjoy!

Time to be cynical again...

So tonight we went to DH's company Christmas party. We didn't go before because they allowed ZERO children, not even of the non-mobile infant sort. So, this was the first year we could go. I already knew it would be awkward and was already hoping they'd forgo the whole party idea in favor of Christmas bonuses. I was going to explain the party in full detail but I think I'll sum it up for you instead.

Do you know what you're sitting in the DR's office and it's crowded and there are people next to you and you feel like you should strike up a conversation but you really don't feel up to it? Yeah, it was like that. Only with undercooked chicken & drunk people everywhere. When I did try to establish rapport the effect was minimial and nobody laughed at my attempts at humor and ask DH, I am funny! DH and I laughed rudely to ourselves the entire evening and had a good time anyway. I mean, no one was mean but the entire evening was just.plain.awkward. Most people didn't want to be there, just like the Drs office. Only with door prizes. Here's what we won, and both the hat and shirt are matching in all their glory. rofl

*sorry, I made him keep the tag on the glasses so I can regift them later* ;-)

They should have stuck with bonuses.

I love this guy...

Jimmy Fallon cracks us up!

Santa Baby....

OK - I debated whether or not to post this because it's a "santa spoiler" so to speak but if you're reading this you're probably either a) An adult or b) A child who typed in google/yahoo "is Santa real". Either way, you can probably handle the following. ;-)

If you are a "Pere Noel" believer you may not want to read any further, consider yourself warned. ;-)

Alright so most of y'all know I have an 8yo brother. Let's call him Ed. So my mom was curious if Ed still believed in Santa. She hints around about him until Ed says, "Mom, I haven't believed in Santa since I was 1 years old!" Cute right? You don't know Ed. He has these snappy 1 liners that make me laugh SO darn hard while at the same time glad it's not my kid saying it. LOL Eds father says "Well, who do you think the man at the mall is then?"

Eds reply was, "Some guy with a crappy job!"

Oh my that child is full of stuff like that. Like I said HYSTERICAL 'cause he's not mine. hehehe

Oh and check this out - who says all the fun in pumpkin pie is eating it? (sorry it's so blurry but you get the idea)

Some people have ants on the counter, some people have cats on the counter, I have an epidemic of diaper clad children on my counter. ;-)

What could possibly keep all 5 kids happy and interested for an hour?

Yes, that's the washing machine. Hey, whatever works right? lol

The Crafty Side

I'm going to take this free moment to post a craft I did last month for my mom. My children are out hunting lions in the jungle of Africa with rifles right now. Well OK so they're in the living room hunting the dogs with broken table legs. They get mighty creative when you take electronics away for a week! ;-)

So back to this craft. A friend of ours was bringing her stained glass equiptment and taught us all how to do it. I looked forever for a design and told my friend what I was looking for and she found this.

I did some things and changed the colors to represent Lung Cancer, which was the one she battled with. The ribbons represent the 5 years they tell you it takes to really be able to take a breath and say "I beat this thing once and for all"

After 12 long hours (a very entertaining story - remind me to tell you) and many cuts later this was the result:



And the really neat thing was she received it on the 4 year anniversary that we found out about the cancer. I couldn't have planned that if I tried. ;-)

Those damn leprechauns!

I made this really warped video for y'all to enjoy. For St. Patricks Day we slipped a little green food coloring in the milk jug and I captured great photos of the kids expression when they opened the fridge. My 5yo's response after I suggested that maybe the Leprechauns visited during the night was, "Gross! Leprechauns P.E.E.D. in our milk?!"

So, take a trip in my demented mind. LOL



(if it doesn't work - try again in a few minutes - I just uploaded it and I'm running out the door)