I know, it has been forever since I have posted anything. So I am going to take the easy route and just post some pictures that we took for our Christmas cards.
Messing with the settings on the camera.
I, personally, think we should have used this one!
There you have it, the highlights of our family Christmas photo shoot. Now, I will try and post some pictures from the big day sometime soon.
This note was taped to Sqaunner’s door. It was to let me know where the tea party was that she invited me to.
She must be from Boston.
Sung to the tune of “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story.
“I am happy
Oh so happy
I am finished and I got an A!!”
I took my final in my Sociology class this morning and got 78 out of 80. I don’t know which questions I missed, but I don’t really care. I’m done and I should have an A in the class!
Now I just have to wait for the grade on my final 20 page project in my Professional and Technical Writing class!
When I was a kid there were two great mysteries that could never be solved. The first was how my brother could possibly be older than me. My birthday was 8 days before his! If my birthday came first, then I should be older, right? It shouldn’t matter that he was born 1 year and 357 days before me, my birthday was first!
The other was when was tomorrow. Everyone would always talk about tomorrow, but it never came! Tomorrow was just some elusive day that never seemed to appear. I guess sometimes the great mysteries of life can never be solved!
Okay, I'm going to jump back on the blogging bandwagon with some pictures from Halloween.
I told TRMinator that, at 13, he was too old to go trick or treating. He still really wanted to because his friends were going, so I relented and told him he could still go, but he had to make his own costume. So he made his and G-man’s costumes. I’m not sure exactly what they were, it was something from Lord of the Rings. I let Squanner decide what she wanted to be, and she wanted to be Rapunzel.
TRMinator cut all the pieces of their armor out of cereal boxes, taped it all together and spray painted it. It actually took him a bit of time to do. I made the rest from a picture he gave me.
This was right before the school Halloween carnival. I finished up G-man’s costumes literally minutes before this was taken and we walked out the door.
On the big night, Hubby took Squanner around the neighborhood trick or treating and G-man went with TRMinator and his friends. After about a half an hour, they made it to our house and G-man decided that he was done, and wanted to stay inside to watch TV and eat his candy. Of course now that he is about out of candy and his brother and sister still have lots, he’s regretting that decision just a bit!
Why oh why am I unfaithful to you, Target? It all starts with that errant thought, that maybe Walmart will have what I am looking for in a bit bigger package, with a little better price. As I’m driving there, I’m questioning myself, thinking I shouldn’t do it and that I may regret it, yet I still pull into that retched parking lot.
Oh the parking lot. The chaos that is Walmart always starts in the parking lot. There is always the parking lot vulture. You know the one camped out waiting for that person’s spot who has just barely started to unload their cart full of bags, all the while blocking the whole lane.
After managing to get past that, I still venture into the store. I ask myself yet again, why? There’s a little voice in my head yelling at me to go home! Go back to Target where it’s safe! But no, I persevere, thinking that I’ll save myself some money. I now come to the cramped aisles that is the hallmark of Walmart. The powers that be must think that all the crap right in the middle of the aisle will be a great way to help the traffic flow by only letting one cart through on a side at a time. This doesn’t encourage the typical Walmart shopper to move along though, so all the others behind them can get through. It just means that you should stop and look at whatever catches your fancy, because no one in the crowd that is now blocked behind you could possibly be in a hurry, could they?
Ahh, I’ve found what I’m looking for and am heading to Walmart’s one saving grace—their self checkouts. I’m almost done! As I’m on my way out of the store and back into the light I can’t help but notice all the many carts parked haphazardly all over the parking lot. Hmmm, I guess that just means that you don’t have to clean up after yourself, someone else gets to. Except that they’re not, and the parking lot is a mess.
As I’m pulling away I promise myself to never stray from Target again! The next time I walk into Target, that well-lit, clean, and wide-aisled store, I may just give it a hug, and tell it that I won’t ever stray again!
Why is it that smoke detector’s batteries only seem to go dead at 2:00am? It always seems that you are sound asleep, having a dream about something or other, but for some reason there is some annoying chirp that keeps going off. No matter what you or anyone in your dream does, it doesn’t stop! That incessant chirp happens about every 30 seconds! Seriously, for the love of all that is holy, would someone stop the stupid chirping!!
Then you finally wake up to realize that the chirping is happening in real life and Hubby is up and trying to find which blasted smoke detector it is coming from. (because no one has thought to put an indicator light of some kind that lights up when the battery is low, so you don’t have to wait for it to chirp yet again and run to where you think the chirping is coming from (heaven forbid you have two that are close to each other))
Maybe that is why they tell you to change your smoke detector batteries when you change the clocks at Daylight Savings. But what if the battery has another six months of juice left? Then you’ve just thrown away a perfectly good battery. I guess for those, like me, that are cheap and don’t want to throw away batteries that still have life left in them, we’ll just deal with dreams that chirp at us every so often.
We got wind a couple months ago, that Weird Al Yankovic was coming the Utah State Fair. My children (especially my little G-man) are huge fans of his, so we bought tickets. The cool thing about the tickets to his concert was that you got admission to the fair as well. I’ve never been to a state fair before, so we went a few hours early to check it out.
There was am interactive kids exhibit that Squanner enjoyed, G-man thought was okay, and TRMinator wondered why we made him go through.
(This picture is purely for my mother’s benefit. She knows why!)
After being mini farmers, we had to go over to the giant slide.
After spending 40 bucks on dinner, (I kid you not, I got Squanner and G-man each a cheeseburger and drink, and it cost $20!) we decided that Hubby needs to be the one that gets an unspecified amount of cash and gets everyone dinner. I need to completely stay out of it, and not know how much everything costs because if I do, I get cranky.
Before we left we realized that it was ice cream day! Each year, I believe it’s the Utah Dairy Association, picks one day and puts on an ice cream tent. You pay $3 for adults and $2 for kids, and you get as much ice cream as you want!
Now that I’ll do! I’m willing to drop $13 on ice cream for my family. Maybe that should have been our dinner!
After wandering around a bit longer and seeing some of the exhibits…
Seriously, someone really needs to tell the poor folks who made all this stuff that plastic canvas went out 20 years ago…
It was time for Weird Al!!!
The kids thoroughly enjoyed it, as did the parents! Weird Al puts on a good show. He did a lot of costume changes and came out in character to sing the songs.
This was his parody of Nirvana.
Amish Paradise
His encore was his songs about Star Wars. My kids went nuts.
Fun stuff!
Why do I take pictures of the kids on their first day of school, but I don’t take any pictures of me on my first day of school?
Because my kids are way cuter, that’s why!!
Also, Hubby just did this last Saturday.
That would be the very top of a very tall mountain.
Yep, I think he’s nuts too.
I always thought TRMinator ruled the roost in the drama department. Well Princess Squanner is going to give him a run for his money.
This morning was one of those mornings for the Squanner. She was extra tired and just didn’t want to get moving. After pushing her through breakfast and getting her dressed, she just wanted to lay on the couch under a blanket and watch TV. Since we had a few minutes till we needed to leave I told her she could. When it was time to go, I dragged her off the couch and made her put her shoes on. As she was walking past me out the door, she heaved her shoulder high in the air, and with a dramatic sigh dejectedly said, “I guess this is my life now.”
Yes, pretty princess, you have joined the world of those who have to get up in the morning. I know, it’s hard, but somehow we’ll survive.
TRMinator decided that he needed to have a birthday—not just any birthday either. He decided that it was time to be teenager, so he turned 13!
13!!
My baby boy is 13!!
How is it possible that my sweet, precious, chubby cheeked boy is now a teenager?
Seriously. Would someone explain to me how this happened in such a short time?
Squanner and the G-man have been taking swimming lessons this summer. After one of Squanner’s lessons, the teacher asked if they wanted to go off the diving board. Without any hesitation she jumped out and went to line up on the board. Both my boys wouldn’t go off the board till they were at least 8 or 9, and it took lots of cajoling to get them to that point. She’s 6 and didn’t think twice.
As a side note, I asked Hubby if it would be hard to post this video on my blog. He said no, he would throw it up there. I should have known his version would be mixed, arranged, and produced to his standard.
Hubby and TRMinator have been gone for the last few days on a camping trip. It was one that they had to hike in, then camp. I, personally, can’t think of much that I would hate to do more! Oh well, they love it and I don’t have to go!
I think I’m ready for them to be home now!
I think I’ll wrap up the pictures from Iowa today. Although this certainly makes for easy blog posts!
They were catching lightning bugs! There’s one sitting on TRMinator’s wrist. I forgot just how slow those things are!
My grandma!!
We had to run down to Nauvoo to take some pictures in front of the temple. Holy cow it was hot and humid that day!! It was one of those days that actually made me glad I don’t live in the Midwest anymore! We took a few more pictures after this and TRMinator told me that he didn’t want to get out of the car anymore—it was too hot!
This was at my aunt and uncle’s house with their sweet dog. My lense was all fogged up. I’m not sure if it was from the humidity or what, but I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t notice it sooner!
On our way home to see dad and G-man! Although I’m not sure that G-man was as excited to see us. He really enjoyed having the place to himself!
Okay, here are more pictures from our trip! I just realized that I didn’t say in the last post, that I just took TRMinator and Squanner with me, G-man stayed home and had lots of fun with his dad all to himself!
One of the things TRMinator wanted to be sure and see was Snake Alley. Ripley’s Believe it or Not declared it the crookedest street in the world. The one in San Francisco is longer, but Snake Alley has tighter corners. Anyway, they ran up and down in several times and it was hot and humid (surprise, surprise) that day!
Now that’s a river!!
Photo courtesy of Squanner!
I know, I know, it’s been forever since I have posted anything. I’ll make up for that a bit by posting some pictures from our recent trip home to Iowa.
We couldn’t even get out of the airport before I had to take a picture!
Have I mentioned that my hometown has the most beautiful parks around? Well if I haven’t, they do!! There’s even a rainbow in the sky, you can’t see it very well in this picture, but it’s there!
That would be the mighty Mississippi in the background.
They wanted to touch the water.
I’ll post more tomorrow!
I just thought you all would like to know that it is now July. Which can only mean one thing… my birthday is this month!!
Has anyone figured out how to have birthdays but not actually get any older? Because I would really like to know how to do that! I’m all about celebrating my birthday, but this get older stuff has got to go!!
After an unusually long, wet, and cold spring, I think it is finally summer!
Think we need a bigger pool?
Hmm, I’d say probably yes.
Hubby decided it was time for G-man to learn to mow the lawn.
Have I mentioned that my husband has an infinite amount of patience?
That one strip of grass was mowed really well!
