Thanksgiving 2011

A very Happy Thanksgiving to you!   I have much to be thankful for…. especially kids in school-made hats. 

11/11/11

Eleven, Eleven, Eleven
It's ok.... It's ok....

Hey Jack… Love Your Lantern

  Here is proof we did indeed have Halloween this year.  David was sick, so he and I stayed home handing out candy, just Joey and I did last year.  (we figure it will be Rose’s turn to be sick next year)  David actually had a pretty good time staying home.  He put on his Green Lantern (pronounced lanter-ren) costume and held the bowl each time the doorbell rang.  (I’m pretty sure he wasn’t contagious by that point…the real sick day was the day before… not to be too graphic)  He saw a few friends from school come to the door, and they all thought that was pretty cool.  Joey and Rose were sent with Aunt Karen to make the rounds with Owen and Madeline…and they thought that was pretty great too.  Halloween is Karen’s birthday, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to celebrate with her.  (but she turned 47 just the same)  The kids went to the Monster Mash at school the Friday before, we had our annual block party Saturday then Halloween on Monday…. we certainly got our fill.  It was another successful spooky season! 

Rose, Bella and Allison:

Rose, Emily, Leah, David & Joey

Isabella & Rose (school friend and soccer teammate last season)

Joey’s last Halloween party at Garden Road preschool (this was his 6th one counting the other years with R & D)

Joey’s Class: Top L-R;  Austin, Joey, Roxy, Dylan, Drew, Mrs. Martin, Christopher, Hayden, Samantha, Quinn  Bottom L-R; Chloe, Carter, Rylee, Ashley, Allison, Addison, Lilliana, Katelina, Erin

David on Halloween night

Hey FRANK!

G is for Glasses

Lost Lips (SDSU Homecoming & Alumni Band)

When the hell did I lose my lips?  And what’s with my teeth?  They look brown and chippy….  in my next life I will come back as a plastic surgeon’s wife.

This is my good friend Lori from college.  We were in the SDSU marching band together and were roommates for a brief time.  (Wow….I met Lori 29 years ago!)Lori told me about  SDSU’s homecoming game a few weeks ago, and asked me to join the alumni band for game.  What the hell… a night out from the kids?  Count me in!  So I rummaged around and found my flute, cleaned off the tarnish and attempted to play.  I had music I was supposed to learn, but when I had to get out magnifying glasses to even read the notes, I decided it was probably going to be a lost cause.  I had sort of forgotten how to read music… so I decided to just wing it.  We had a GREAT time.  By the end of the night, I was sounding better and better!  (better to all those around me who were drinking a lot of beer)  Lori and I hung out with our friend Rhea who also was in band with us.  (We looked super cool when all 3 of us had to bust out reading glasses to see the music.) 

It was of fun… we got to join the band on the field at halftime to play for the homecoming court.  I haven’t been on the stadium floor in YEARS!  Well, 25 years I guess.  I saw a lot of old faces I hadn’t seen in as long.  There were about 120 alumni who showed up to play and another 60+ who came to watch the game and festivities.  We sat in the stands with the band to play during the game.  I think the young girls, also alumni, sitting behind us in the flute section (who looked like I could be their Mom…. biologically that is) thought we were super-cool as they snickered about how out of tune we were… or perhaps they were just talking about me…..  Oh, and band geeks are still band geeks and forever will be.  I told Lori I didn’t think we were so band-geeky when WE were in band.  She assured me we were.  I will definitely do it again next year.  And more more Oh… the Aztecs played TCU, and we lost, by a lot.  It was Marshal Faulk hat giveaway night.  They gave him an award at halftime and had some little ceremony as he had just been inducted into the football hall of fame.  I’m not a Faulk fan, but that’s another boring story for another time.

On a side note, I kept looking at a girl during rehearsal who is a current member of the Marching Aztecs.  She was very familiar to me and I couldn’t figure out why.  She turned and looked at me and said: “Hey, you’re David’s Mom!”  Turns out Melissa was an aide in David’s PEPP (kindergarten) class last year.  That made me feel old when I told her I was in the band from 1982 through 1985.  She wasn’t even born yet.  This is her below:

I hadn’t remembered Kenny Rogers being a Marching Aztec…

Lori, Rhea and I with, and sans granny glasses:

Scott Stewart (Rhea’s husband)

105 degrees of Separation

Joey’s class recently went on the annual preschool trip to the pumpkin patch, and wouldn’t you know, it was only 105 degrees there that day!  I thought we had it bad 3 years ago when we went with Rose’s class and it was 102.  I guess I should know by now it can always be worse.  The kids all got to load onto the Big Yellow school bus for the drive… which was a real treat for them.  I forgot to snap a picture of that.  (I drove separately with some of the other parents.)  It was toasty, but a good time was had by all!

Carter & Joe

 

 

Top Left: Carter, Joey, Hayden, Rylee, Erin, Ashley, Roxy, Allison, Addison  Bottom Left: Samantha, Chloe, Ashton, Lilliana, Austin, Quinn, Christopher, Drew, Dylan

More Words of Wisdom

This is Red Ribbon week at school.  Each day they teach about good character and saying no to drugs…    Today David’s grade got their red ribbons and had a little pep rally about it all… Rah Rah Rah!  He was proudly telling me all about it on the way home from school and repeating the slogan “The choice for me is Drug Free”  Then he said “Mommy, next time we go to the drug store, I’m going to walk in and say I want FREE DRUGS.” 

Yes David, that’s EXACTLY what you should do.  Way to go Red Ribbon week, your messages are coming in loud and clear.

 

 

Wisdom

(If you want to get to the punch line, skip to the next paragraph)  This weekend was BUSY!  We had 2 soccer games, a swim birthday party (running out to get a present because we had forgotten about the party), babysitting Owen and Madeline, golf practice, soccer picture day, all-you-can-bounce jumpies fund raiser at picture day, a girl scout function at a water park for Rose, plus hang the orange lights in the tree for Halloween.  In addition to all this there was of course cramming every additional minute of the day with bike riding and playing with friends. 

Sunday, as David and I were walking out the door for golf, late…because I was taking him… both hands full with various things and a credit card type thing in my mouth for his pre-paid golf lessons (as I had no where else to put it)…  David: “Mommy, that card is very special.  I suggest you put something else in your mouth.”  Thank you, smartass.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

This never gets old….  Why do I love them so much when they sleep?  And how is it they can all sleep so well crammed right up next to each other?  I’m envious…  Oh… and don’t they look like they fell asleep right in the middle of cheering for something?  They must have been dreaming of cheering me on in my total awesomeness of daily super-stuff…..like slaying mosquito hawks, doing laundry and throwing chicken nuggets in the microwave.  That’s probably it.

Bikes

Last Sunday David asked me to take off the training wheels on his bike.  Of course it was right at the time they should all hunker down for Sunday-night-before-school baths, dinner and getting to bed.  I told him we would do it after school on Monday.  I actually figured he wouldn’t even ask again, but he did!  I decided if I was taking off David’s training wheels, Rose was going to get hers off too.  She hasn’t touched her bike for over a year after she and a curb had a major disagreement that left her with some good scars on her knees.   Short story even shorter, they both learned to ride those bikes in less than 5 minutes!  I know, I know, I have the most AMAZING KIDS…. EVER!  No ever kid learned this faster… just ask me!  Oh, and I don’t want to hear the details of how your kids did it when they were 2, frankly I don’t care! 

Snow Day

“Mommy….the Wii is broken!”  No kiddies, the power just went out. 

Last week we had our version of a snow day.  The power went out throughout SD county and they said it would be out for about a day and a half.  School was cancelled for the next day.  Woo-Hoo!  (woo-hoo for the kids anyway, the bummer part was that all 3 kids were going to school on Friday and I wasn’t working in the classroom, so I was looking forward to my 2 1/2 hours of complete ALONE time…but suddenly didn’t get because now I was going to have the kids home all day)  Long story short, the outage only lasted about 7 hours but the kids LOVED it.  We broke out the candles and flashlights and ate popsicles for dinner.  All the neighbor kids were out prowling the street for a few hours with flashlights.  The next day they could have gone to school, but since they had already sent out the message all schools would be closed, they a freebie day off, with electricity.   Sweet!

Forts

We have been on a fort kick in our house.  Our most recent architectural fabulousness now includes a TV!  Now, if I could just get kick the boys out of there, bring in a cooler of Sierra Nevada… I think I’ve found a my own little slice of heaven.

   

Picture Day

Last week the kids had picture day at school.  The boys will still let me decide what they will wear, but Rose just wasn’t having it.  She had her own ideas on what she wanted to wear and how she wanted her hair.  So when she wanted to wear the “fancy” hand-me-down dress the neighbor gave her over a year ago, (which I still think is just too mature for her, and still doesn’t quite fit her on top…but she had told me a year ago on picture day she would wear it THIS year) I was less than thrilled.  I decided not to fight that fight, so without further ado… here the kids are on the way to school for picture day.  I’m guessing they didn’t look quite as neat when pictures were actually taken.  (I begged Rose not to mess with her hair…but she was a wreck when I picked her up from school, so I can hardly wait to see how her pictures look)  (Oh, and I decided David didn’t have to wear the  polo shirt I had planned for him to wear… like I have made him wear for the last 3 picture days… he already hates wearing his glasses, don’t want to make him think I slated him to be geek from early on)

 

When do boys figure out they don’t want to hold hands with their best friends anymore?  I hope it isn’t soon…  Joey and Carter walking back to class after pictures: 

 

Draw Yourself

This is Joey’s self portrait on the first day of school.  Note the uncanny resemblance.

Summer Beauties

Ian

While it’s always great to see Grammy and Grandpa when they come to town, it’s an even better when they bring one of the favorite cousins with them.  So when Barbara and Paul came to visit with Ian, my kids were in REALLY excited.  (Rose instantly developed a cousin-crush on him, making sure he was watching when she was doing something incredibly interesting)  We had a great time while he was here, hitting touristy spots of interest; the zoo, aerospace museum, racetrack and best of all: Disneyland!  He also got to golf several times and, go swimming at cousin Daniel’s house.  We kept busy the whole week they were here.  After visits like this, we always wished we lived closer to more family.  Now, if we can just convince them all to move here….

Daniel, Ian & Grammy at the racetrack

Grandpa (Paul) & Ian

Aunt Randi, Uncle Brad, Grammy, Grandpa, Ian, Joey, Rose, Daniel, Andy & David