Holy Cow!

Look at this thing! I completely forgot that I can even post here!

I build websites for a living now and somehow got to thinking that a plain, old Blogger blog was "beneath me". Silly me. Truth is, I almost never even have time to think of something clever, much less write it down any more. Anything over 140 characters (Hello, Twitter!) is just too much. Besides... someday I'm gonna build myself a real blog, right?

Riiiiiight.

Josiah's Essay

Josiah Thomas
3\18\10

Admire Essay

I admire my friend in period 2 PE. I think he’s a great sports player when he plays any sport in my 2nd period class. I get to have him on my team sometimes.

He is especially good at basketball. I can imagine him dribbling and throwing shots. Sometimes I throw good shots too. He is good at every sport he plays. He is good at tennis, football and passing balls.

He is also very nice to me. He passes me the ball and I sometimes give him the ball so he can make shots. I give him good comments when he scores and he gives me good comments when I score. He scores more points than me but when I score he says, “Good job! You are doing great!” I don’t know his name, but I admire him a lot.

Snowpocalypse3 - Revenge of the Snow

Over it. Maybe over it for life. If I never see another snowflake again......

Snowpocalypse2... in 14 easy installments

I made a TON of these videos. They're all at www.qik.com/mamateresa

Adjusting

So. I've been duly chastised for not keeping up with my blog.
I always thought it was a cop out, but it's true: working on your computer all day makes it much less fun to do things... like update blogs... on your computer when you get home. I have to remind myself that there are people out there who actually want to know what my kids are up to. They may even care what I've been up to sometimes too!

Here's the deal. My "part time" gig as admin. asst. for my friend from church has turned into a real live job. I quit working for the nursery school at the church at Christmas. I'm officially working 25 hours a week, but it often ends up being more.

My boss has been operating this business on the side now for several years but started doing it full time last Spring. She's been working from home, and for a little while, from a space in the church office. We moved into an official office space in December. We worked our rears off getting it all fixed up and our "Office Warming" was last Monday. It was a lot of fun!

Pictures of the whole ordeal, I mean adventure, can be seen on the website:
http://www.sisarina.com/office


The kids are doing great. School is an ordeal, as it should be for any 8, 13 or 14 year old boy worth his salt. Hunter continues to take bass guitar lessons, Ike is at super-blue in Tae Kwon Do (next belt is brown) and Josiah is keeping us on our toes. Josiah's Paxil seems to be working nicely as long as we can keep him out of the foods he's not supposed to eat. Todd is still loving his job. Our dog has some horrible cough which was diagnosed as "kennel cough" but his meds aren't helping. Not a really big deal, just one more thing on our plates.

Feel free to nag me about the blog. I'll do my best to get some pics of the boys up for you soon.

Super-Green!

Isaac got his next TaeKwonDo belt today. His Daddy's not here to make a super-duper video montage, but I figure this one will work. The commentator is me. :-)

He had to break a second board because the first one was too easy. Even Isaac said it was "way too easy" afterward when I asked him about it.

Yay Isaac!

Good job!

After...

It's hard to explain the feeling I got when I saw a squirrel sitting on the stump eating the guts out of this pumpkin.

I asked the squirrel to hold the pose while I got my camera but he didn't cooperate. The pumpkin, however, was happy to comply.

Well. "Happy" may be a stretch.

Halloween is Hard Work

First you have to decorate the yard.

Then you have to design your jack-o-lantern.

Then you have to GUT your jack-o-lantern.

Then you have to talk an adult into carving your jack-o-lantern.

Above is Isaac's.

This one's Todd's.

Josiah's.

Hunter's.

Of course, after all this comes the hard work of walking all over the neighborhood and begging for treats.

Phew.

Bet they can't wait til it's over.

:-D

Cosmic Question

Well. "Cosmic" as in, "for the cosmos at large," not as in, "concerning the cosmos". Here's the deal. I get an email from 1-800-FLOWERS today. It says, Did you know today is the most popular birthday in America? and proceeds to offer me a fabulous deal on a bouquet of roses for any special birthday person I happen to know. Well. As it turns out, today is my Mom's birthday (congrats on being popular mom!) I think, "Score! I'll send mom roses!"

Well. Turns out, it's not available for delivery today. So, why offer me a bouquet for the most popular b-day in America but not ON the most popular b-day in America? Shouldn't you have sent me this email earlier?

Hey. I know it's not your fault my Mom's roses are going to be a day late (surprise, Mom). That's poor planning on my part... which surprises no one. I'm just suggesting that maybe a little better planning is in order for your email campaigns.

I do appreciate the deal, though. Thanks.

That is all.

(gotta love how Blogger messes with fonts)

Looky Here!

Look what they have at Giant now! How crazy is that? Celiac is obviously becoming a SERIOUS issue. I didn't even think to buy one. I just stood and stared....and took a pic.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Birthday SCORE!

This is what the boys were trying to be sneaky about yesterday. They gave it to me at Chili's by pretending to go to the bathroom and coming back to the table with it. :-)
Yes, I pay the ukulele. And, yes, this one sounds great!

Okay... I'll tell now.

I completely forgot to take a pic of the completely perfect card that went with all this. I may have another chance, though. I went to lunch with some girlfriends today and Todd took the boys out to lunch too. Burger King. Burger King is actually quite a hike from our place. When asked "Why," he said that he wanted to take them somewhere 'special' since I was eating somewhere 'special'. I hate Burger King and they love it, so this made sense. Until they got home. As soon as Josiah saw me he proclaimed, "Mom! We bought you a 'not tellin'!!!"

:-D

I'll let you know what the additional "not telling" is when I find out.

"Not Telling"

My birthday's tomorrow. I don't tell you this in order to get anything from you, but to set up the story I'm about to tell.

Todd took the two older boys shopping tonight while I took lil' bit to Tae Kwon Do. After class, I asked Ike, "Do you think the first words out of Josiah's mouth when we get home will be what they bought me?" Ike said, "Yup. But I'll stop him first."

Soon after arriving home, Josiah hollered for me from upstairs, "MOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!" over and over until I came to the stairwell.

"Yes, sir."

"MOM, I'M NOT TELLING YOU WHAT WE GOT YOU FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY," he yells down.

"Okay. Thank you!"

Isaac says, "Well, guess I'm not gonna have to stop him."

5 minutes later Josiah comes down to my office. "Mom, we got you 'not telling', 'not telling, 'not telling' and some 'not telling'."

"Really? That's a lot of 'not telllings'."

"Yeah. And we got you some 'not telling' related 'not tellings'."

"Mmmmm. Nice."

Sometimes, I love my life.

And, in case you're wondering why they waited until the day before, Josiah inherited his "not telling" issues from his Daddy. Todd waits until last minute because he can't stand not telling. :-D

Sittin' Pretty

Have I mentioned how much our cat loves the new fish tank?

Dad? Is that you?

A friend of mine shared this with me today. It made me giggle. I mean, really, a cheeky homeless person. How fun is that? So I forwarded it to Todd. His response, after a chuckle, was, "He looks kinda like your dad." And I realized that if, for some reason, my Dad ever became homeless and decided to panhandle (if you know my Dad, you see the irony in that thought), this is exactly the way he'd do it.

'Cause my Dad's clever like that. And cheeky.

:-D

P.S. If you can't read it, the sign says, "I BET U CAN'T HIT ME WITH A QUARTER."

P.P.S. Don't do it Dad! You can always come live with us!

'Shrooms

This past Spring was a wet one for us. It rained so much I started feeling moldy...and so did my yard obviously. These are just a few of the various mushroom varieties we ended up with in our yard alone.

In other news...

Our family went to a ball game the other night. I didn't blog about it here because I blogged it elsewhere. My friend, Alissa, is fighting lymphatic cancer. She's a friend from my knitting group back in DFW. She can't get out this summer because of her chemo and asked us to send her postcards of what we do this summer to help cheer her up and keep her entertained. A few of the ladies in our group took her request one step further and put together a Flat Stanley type of blog to track Alissa's "adventures".

There's some great video of the younger boys in the blog. You should check it out!

http://travelwithalissa.blogspot.com/2009/06/play-ball.html

Once upon a time....

A few months ago, Todd disturbed a nest of baby bunnies while cleaning up the yard.

They took off in all directions and some headed for the street so he gathered them up and put them in a box back in the corner he had found them in.

We put the nesting "fluff" into the box to keep them warm and safe. Their mommy accepted the box with good grace and all of them grew up and hopped away. We still see one or two of them every now and then.

Hooray for urban wildlife!

New Ventures

I got a new job.  Have I told you that?  No.  I'm pretty sure I haven't, because I've been working so much I haven't blogged!  Of course, you and I both know that is just a lame excuse.  I haven't blogged because I've been lazy, but I did get a new job!

I'm working part time from home for a friend who has started up her own marketing and web design company (Sisarina.com).  I don't have an official title at this point, but mostly I'm her personal assistant.  She was willing to take me as I was and train me from the ground up and I am learning so, so much!!!   I'm learning Quick Books and web content writing and site optimization and all sorts of stuff I'd never heard of before.  I even went to a Tweet Up tonight (a networking event for people on Twitter).  I'm loving it!  Occasionally I even feel like I have a clue. Though those times are few and far between, I have high hopes!

I'm still planning to teach next year.  Even if this job ends up being more hours, the preschool needs me.  Cocky as that sounds, there is a lot of class restructure going on next year and they need teachers who have been around a little while to help smooth the transition.

Until I get around to uploading my photos of Todd holding baby bunnies and the kids playing and such, here's a shot of the azaleas we had this Spring.  They were so amazing!  Like our stumps?  They came from a walnut tree we had to cut down on the church playground and they make great stools/end tables in the yard.

Family Bonding

Please note the presence of all 3 children in this fight.  Later on there was some serious (Hunter actually said, "Epic") armpit action.  I didn't get pictures.  Sorry.