Groove is in his heart

We got a Kinnect for the XBox for Christmas.  Santa brought it and one game for everyone.  G-man got a Sonic game and TRMinator got one called Dance Central.  Santa thought G-man would really enjoy Sonic because that was one of his favorite games to play on the XBox.  It was, until he discovered Dance Central and found that he has a groove in his soul that was just waiting to come out.

G-man loves that game.  And he’s actually pretty decent.  Now that he has started dancing with it, he’ll just start random dancing wherever he is.  It doesn’t matter if he’s at home, at a restaurant or at the store, he’ll get his little grove on to a song in his head.  It’s pretty funny to watch.  Just another one of his little quirks that makes me love him and want to give him a squeeze!

Belated pictures

I’ve been meaning to post some pictures from the kid’s New Years party for awhile now.  I am also trying to write a paper right now, so I am going to avoid that for a little bit and blog instead!  Whenever I get writer’s block, it seems like a good distraction to post on my blog.

For the last several years we have had a neighborhood New Year’s Eve party.  It is held just across the street from us, so we let the kids stay home and have their own little party.  I got them some hats and noise makers and took them to the store to pick out all sorts of snacks.  They watched movies and ate most of the night. 

 

This is what we found when we walked in the door at 12:15am:

TRMinator said that G-man fell asleep by around 10:30, Squanner made it to about 11:45 and then he fell asleep just after midnight because of sheer boredom.  That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it!

What a difference a few months make!

Isn’t it funny how your perception of temperature changes depending on what month you are in?  Today the high temperature is supposed to be in the 40’s.  I’m thinking it might be time to bust out the spring jackets! (not really, but I want to)  If this was October and the high was supposed to be in the 40’s, we’d be in winter jackets with gloves and hats.  I guess when the high’s have been in the mid 20’s for the last month, 40 degrees feels downright balmy.

Random Friday

Since Hubby and I have decided to stay put and not try and sell our house again for another year or so, we are going to do little things here and there to fix it up.  Basically things that I would have liked to do, but we were going to move, so Hubby didn’t want to.

Last week we put up new lights outside and switched out the light fixtures in all the bathrooms.  Next up, we would like to replace the linoleum in the bathrooms with tile and put in new countertops in the kitchen.  I am very excited to be doing these things because it’s stuff I would have loved to have done when we built our house, but we couldn’t afford to then.  It’s really fun to walk into the home improvement store and pick out what I actually want instead of picking out whatever is the cheapest. 

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I am so proud of my boys right now.  Today is end of the semester and TRMinator has all A’s!  He’ll be getting a 4.0 this quarter because they are all solids A’s, no A –.  His lowest percentage is in science and it’s a 94%.  He even has three classes that he is getting over 100%!

G-man got monthly Jr. Wapiti for his class.  His teacher does a little incentive program called Jr. Wapiti (before you ask, I’m not sure what a wapiti is, I think some type of elk or something).  To get it you need to have all you work turned in on time, among other things, for the week.  If you get it every week, you get Jr. Wapiti for the month.  Well this month, for the first time he got Jr. Wapiti for the month and he is so excited.  I am so proud of him because this is something he has been struggling with for most of the year, and it is finally clicking with him.

I think I’ll have to take them out for ice cream!

Wordless Wednesday

Is this really what I signed up for?

Wow, I’m really frustrated with my English classes right now, so maybe if I write about it I’ll feel better!  (really sounds like an English major, huh?) 

This semester I am taking two classes, both of which are online.  I wasn’t exactly sure when I signed up for online classes if I would like it, but I figured, why not.  Especially since Squanner is only in school half the day, I don’t have the freedom yet to go to class whenever I want. 

Here is my opinion so far of online classes:  it’s an easy out for the professor.  I am not impressed with how it is working.  I am particularly frustrated with my critical literature class right now.  It is really feeling like a sink or swim situation without any direction.  We are supposed to comment on discussion threads weekly, with the professor starting the first one.  School started Monday and she still hasn’t posted a discussion question for this week yet.  I really hope that she decides to pop into the discussion board and start actually teaching sometime, because right now I feel like I am going to have to teach all this material to myself and I didn’t pay that kind of money in tuition for a self-taught course.

Is he sick, or is he not sick, that is the question…

The G-man stayed home from school today.  He says his stomach hurts really bad.  I believe him because he was up several times last night in our room complaining that his stomach hurt.  But does it hurt bad enough to justify staying home from school?  That’s the real question.

This is one of those things that makes me wonder if I’m being a good mom by listening to my child and believing him when he says he’s sick, or if I am being a bad mom and giving in to his  slacking tendencies.  (This is only his second sick day this school year. though.)  I remember when I was a kid, we had to be half dead before we could stay home from school- that may be a slight exaggeration if you ask my mom, but I don’t recall it that way.  

I told him that my goal was to take him to school this afternoon when I take Squanner to school.  I guess we’ll just have to see how he says he’s feeling by then.  And then see if I believe him or not.

My grandma cracks me up!

I have mentioned before that when I was growing up, my grandparents ran an apple orchard.  In addition, they also had a big garden that produced lots of fruits and vegetables that they would sell along with the apples.  One of the things that I would help with was picking strawberries.  My grandma was famous for telling us every single time before we went out to pick, “No white tips!”  The thing with strawberries is, once you pick them, they don’t continue to ripen like tomatoes.  So if you pick some that are still white at the tip, they aren’t quite ready and aren’t as good.  Of course, I knew that when I was picking, and tried to only pick the fully ripe ones, but I was only 11 or 12, so she really wanted to make sure I didn’t forget!  

It has become a running joke between my grandma and I now.  Whenever I see anything with strawberries, I think of her.  A couple years ago I got her a boxed set of cards simply because they had a big picture of a strawberry on the front.  I sent them to her with a note on them that said, “Look!  No white tips!”  I got a letter in the mail from her today that her return address label had a little picture of a strawberry on it.  Underneath she had written, “No white tips!”  Needless to say, I laughed when I saw it.  She cracks me up!