A GIRL?????
So, I walk back to my bedroom to put on my jammie pants and hear as I walk by my son's open bedroom, "Hi. Can I talk to (insert girl's name here)?"
I stand in the doorway of my bedroom, mouth open, staring in disbelief at his open doorway. He appears in said doorway with his phone on his ear, glimpses the look on my face, raises his eyebrows and slowly closes his door.
Not happening. N-O-T, do you hear me?
It was a Wednesday night "Jesus Rocks" event put on by the children's worship team for church and those who attend our preschool to see some of what they do on Sunday mornings.
Shortly after the trash can band played, Todd rode his scooter through the auditorium. The kids went ape. It was a really great night. 
If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.
Bill Vaughan
....which pales in comparison to what I heard in my class today:
"Mrs. Aweesa. I wuv you."
- Nicholas B.
It almost makes the hell of naptime with 12 squirming, screaming and/or snoring 2 year olds worth it, doesn't it?
What Hunter wishes he was doing right now.
And what he will be doing this time tomorrow, I'm sure.
Did I mention that Todd resigned as youth minister at Southlake a couple of weeks ago?
Probably not. When my best friend called me yesterday and asked, "Did your husband quit his job?" I realized that I had failed to mention it. Sorry 'bout that.
It just was not the fit we hoped it would be. We are staying at the church, we love this church so much!! There are no quarrels or disagreements, it just didn't work. Todd is working on some projects for the church still and will remain on salary for several more months. Please be praying for us as we seek our place in God's Kingdom.
Again.
So far this weekend I have mostly worked on that wool I got in the Spring. It came to me straight off the sheep and it is.......unpleasant. It didn't cost me anything but I'm not sure it was worth it. I'll know in the next few days. It's been a fun challenge to see if I can get it clean enough to spin without felting it.
If you think it looks scary, you should smell it.
Besides cleaning wool, I went shop-hopping with my Mom. It is a yearly phenomenon in which thousands of quilting women travel from quilt shop to quilt shop on a specified route, receiving pieces and instructions for a quilt block at each shop, along with signing up for a door prize (usually worth $100 or more). This year there were 2 "routes", each with 10 shops. If you get a stamp from each of the ten shops, you qualify for a drawing for some phenominal prize or another. I'm not sure if there was anything extra for doing all 20 except bragging rights. We did 5. It really was fun to spend the afternoon with my Mom and also to see all the great quilts and fabrics at the shops. I didn't even buy anything! Aren't you proud of me?
Geraldine, wish you were here! (Though quilt shops in North Texas probably aren't nearly as fun as New Zealand is right now....hope you're having fun too!)
We finally got Josiah onto his Daddy's scooter. After weeks and weeks of:
"Hey, Josiah, you wanna ride to school on my scooter today?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'm scared."
"Why are you scared, Josiah?"
"It makes me windy."
Same conversation every morning.
Todd finally decided to shake things up by asking him ahead of time. The night before he asked, "Hey, Josiah, you wanna ride to school on my scooter tomorrow?" He was rewarded by,
"O.K."
We were flabbergasted! Yippee!!! Which is pretty close to what he yelled all the way to school that next morning. Now he's the one who asks to ride the scooter to school every day. He doesn't get to ride it every day but it's so cool that he wants to now....and he will get to sometimes.
You just never know with some kids.
This is the frog my boys created at Build a Bear for my birthday.
Cute, isn't she? I have another shot or two of her by herself, but Isaac really wanted to get into the picture. I think it gives a sense of her size.
Now I have someone to knit for whose sweaters won't take 6 months to finish! She also won't care if the yarn's itchy.
You know how with your first child you want to keep everything they ever do in school but by the third you're throwing it out before it even comes in your front door? I'm trying to balance that. Ah, the miracles of modern science. They come in handy here. I can just scan Isaac's stuff and then toss it!
This is Isaac's second sentence. (O.K., I think I tossed the first one...oops) It was his second week in school. He is still learning his alphabet (shame on me!) and they've got him writing sentences. I love it! It's such a "Momma" thing to be so proud of such a silly little thing but, there ya' go, I'm a Momma!
Like that leg? L-l-l-leg. How 'bout that lung too? What happened to "Lollipop" or "Lamb"? And why not "Lapriscopy"?
Doesn't matter, 'cause now we're on to "g". I don't even wanna hear it, Geraldine!
This is Hunter and Josiah reading a comic book together. They're not just reading it side-by-side at the same time, they're reading out loud and taking turns being the different characters. It's a favorite of mine. (I can't call it "cute", they're too old for that. ;-) 
You know how sometimes you do something so stupid that you get that sick feeling in your stomach? How it just steals all the joy out of everything for awhile?
I got to experience that today. Not because I did something but because I didn't do something....last year, or last month.
I went to the Department of Transportation to wade through the beurocracy and finally transfer my license today. I went once before but had only 2 forms of I.D. instead of the required 3 and so have been putting off going back. It's far away and jam-packed and a general pain. I went back today and discovered that my Alabama license expired last month. For some reason I thought I had until 2008....maybe that's my Sam's card or something. Anyway, due to this oversight and lack of motivation on my part I am now required to re-take the written exam and the driving test. Yup. Just like when I was 17 (I took driver's ed. late).
I am sick. Sick at the time it will take and, even more so, sick at the money. I had my birthday money carefully counted out and budgeted and now a large chunk of it will go to correcting my own stupid mistake. Sick, sick, sick.
So now my fast approaching birthday to which I was actually looking forward has a grey pall over it. A grey pall of stupidity. Lucky for me I have a family who loves me even when I'm stupid so I won't be allowed to sit home and mope, which is all I feel like doing right now. We'll be eating foreign food and hangin' out and having fun. I'll probably start feeling better tonight after I get my kids home from school.
Fickle, fickle girl. How easily swayeth thine emotions.
The annual Lion's Club Parade was tonight. We thought it was Labor Day weekend and had guests invited over and everything but when we saw the barriers set up on our block in preparation this morning we started making some calls. We ended up inviting a whole slew of folks over to sit in our yard and watch the parade go by. It was scheduled for 7 and at about 6:30 it started to thunder. By 6:45 it was pouring. Now we need rain in a pretty hard way so no one was really heartbroken, but the timing wasn't so great. And how cliche:
It rained on our parade!
The good news is that the rain did stop and almost everyone showed up in time for the parade, which was able to start just a little bit late. We ended up with a good sized crowd of friends and a stranger or two hanging out in our yard and it was a total blast!
It's fun to see the fire trucks and yell at the "Little Miss" contestants in their convertables (or pickup trucks...this is Texas) and such, but we all know what parades are really about:
It's all about the candy!
Everyone had a great time. If we do move out of this house, we'll have to make sure it's after the parade that year.
Some Days you're Mario....
And some days you're Princess Peach.
Days are just like that I guess.
Once again pear season fast approach-eth. I've been watering my little pear tree hoping for bigger pears. I think we just have a small variety but they are definitely bigger than last year. Someone took every single pear off of our pear tree by the road. I don't need them but they could have at least waited until they were ripe! (May have been squirrels, but there were no signs.) Anyway.....anybody want some pears next month? I still haven't used the ones I put up from last year.
It's been a good day for posts. I knew I needed to blog so I decided I would tell you all about Kingdom of Loathing (again) since I recently defeated the Naughty Sorceress (with only one hit point to spare). It really is a fun game. The graphics are purposely rudimentary (I think they call that "primative") but the narration rocks the world!
I'm fighting a Yeti. A "Knott Yeti" to be exact and he's pretty rough to beat, but I've got very powerful weapons! and I'm pretty experienced by now so he can't even get a hit in on me. He still tries though. Here's what I read:
He tries to gnaw on your stomach, but fails abominably. And abdominally.
I laugh...all the way to the bank (I get over 300 meat every time I defeat him). I'm thinking about how clever I am until Isaac walks in and bowls me over with this one:
"Mom, this day is just crying out for us to do something together."
He's 5. He still has a little baby-talk left in his words so things like "dis day" make the whole sentence somehow out of synch with reality. "Crying out"? How amazing.
What would you do? Exactly what I did, I'm sure. Grin broadly and ask, "What would you like to do?" The answer? "I don't know, but not snuggle. That's just boring." Do you chuckle? Of course not. The male ego is fragile, even in a 5 year old. He goes to the garage in search of a project and comes up with sidewalk chalk.
Here's what we did together:
It took at least 30 minutes and we worked up a good sweat out there in the sun. I think it was an admirable "together time".
Afterwards Todd came home early for lunch and drove Isaac to school on his scooter. Isaac lives to ride his Daddy's scooter. I have the greatest photo. Blogger, of course, will not post it for some reason. It will be in a future post, I promise you. When you see it, please remember the reference to the male ego and know that I did not laugh out loud. I simply asked if I could take a photo.
