BALD BABY TURNS 8...

This past Wednesday was Hannah's EIGHTH birthday (can you believe it)??? Even though my kids know I like the dog best, this is the first year that we haven't had a "cake" or anything special for just her -- mainly because the spoiled older brats that live in the Momservant's house were given a sleepover party for end-of-school-year.

Well, Gramma & Papaw rectified all that. She got her present when they came to visit this weekend, stuck her head right in & pulled out the birthday cookie! Granted, we had to take it out of the actual box (although with her track record of eating "stuff", I wouldn't have put it past her to just EAT the box) for her but she really enjoyed it, and her new duck!

Now, lest you think that I shorted my "favorite kid" -- Wee One & I did take her to the pet store on her birthday & she got a birthday "donut" treat, plus a new (yellow) squeaky tug rope toy (note to "Dad" / Dan -- not real keen on those straw type squeakers -- they seem unreliable???)... then we drove her through Starbucks so she could get her cup of puppy whip. She got some extra lovin' from the baristas at the window since she was a birthday girl!

LAST DANCE CLASS

Wee One recently had his last "dance class", so we made a little poster with his friend for his teacher, Miss Milea. It had pictures of the two of them on it from throughout the year, and then the Momservants traced their feet & cut them out of construction paper. It came out REALLY CUTE!

Miss Milea gave both the boys little ball blower things (you know, the little pipes where you blow & the ball bounces up in the air above the little basket thingy) and then played with them for the last time this school year with the puppets. Wee One is already asking when he goes back to dance class & doesn't quite get the "in the fall" thing LOL!!

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES...

Here are the bubbas on the first day of school (3rd grade) in August 2008....

... and here they are on their LAST day of 3rd grade (being dropped off at the front door - what service from the Momservant!)...

Yes, we now "own" fourth graders!

Everyone keeps asking me when school starts up again, and can you believe that I haven't looked it up yet? Well, they have only been home for 2 days.... so I'm sure by about Tuesday I'll be circling that date on my calendar!!

BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

ASPARAGUS YING-YANG

Asparagus makes one child happy.....

....and KILLS the other one!

BALD BABY'S BIG BROTHER

also titled as...

"DAVID, COME LOOK AT THIS!!"

(Which is what I imagine Gramma is screaming to Grampa about right now....)

Yep, the "girl hair", as I called it, is GONE.

I had enough the other weekend & we took the kids for haircuts. Patrick ended up with a buzz due to a miscommunication between the stylist and me. (Oops!) Anyway, *I* really like it and he's used to it, and I think he's appreciating how much cooler he's going to be this summer.

Now if I could just get him to clean his glasses, all would be better LOL!

OUT, DAMN SPOT!

I don't remember what prompted the action, but the other day I did Lady MacBeth to Kevin, quoting the "out damn spot, out"... and it was disconcerting to me that the child didn't recognize the quotation. Guess I need to start figuring out if anyone has done any Shakespeare into a graphic novel... ??

Spots often end up on my mind when it comes time for Fluffy Girl to become Bald Baby. See about halfway down on her side? It's normally hidden by all the fluff, but Bald Baby has a spot. A dark brown patch of fur in her otherwise normally whitish-golden fluff. My personal theory is that is why the breeder was so willing to sell us Fluffy, because she has that spot in her coat & they didn't want it passed down through the Matter lineage. Guess I've also had spots on the mind lately because of having the breeder on my mind, as we'd ("we" as in me, Mouth & Sullen) would like to get on the list for next summer for a male puppy. (Just wanted to throw that out there -- Gramma has been too complacent lately & needs something to get wound up.)

SIGNS OF SPRING

Okay, so Spring is well established here now -- it's actually so far into allergy season that sometimes it looks like snow is blowing around here with all the allergens in the air -- but here are pics of our daffodils from this year!

INTERNATIONAL FEST

We recently attended the local version of an International Festival for lunch. Mouth got his kimchee... Sullen ate sweet & sour chicken (eyeroll) .... and Wee One ate all the shortbreads I bought. They did a passport thing (you can see it on the bottom of the last picture) where at each booth there was information about the country & the kids had to give them an answer to a question to get a stamper put into their passport. It was a really neat process & we all learned something new -- did you realize there were women pilots during WW2 that flew missions only in the US?

WEE ONE

Today was Day One with the Wee One.

Yes, he's still alive.

Barely. (More on that later.)

We hung out at the house; unfortunately our afternoon plans got cancelled because our friends had a sick one at their house so I decided not to risk it. Ran out to the library and when we got back, The Man, Sullen & Mouth were finishing up packing up the truck and off on their way to camp / play paintball (they'd stopped to grab lunch & change after doing grave decoration for Memorial Day).

We then made up some popsicles to freeze during naptime.... so here he is enjoying his creation!

Now, back to the whole nap time thing. Unfortunately, naptime has been elusive in this household. This is how he occupied his time while he was supposed to be napping. Notice the proud look on his face. (He wasn't looking so proud tonight at bedtime when he had to clean it all up....)

I don't know why this third child had to be an early achiever. Walked early... and now he's turned into Demon Spawn early. I thought I still had a few more weeks left (when he turns 3) !!

Maybe I'll have to start calling him Demon Spawn instead of Wee One....

Like I said above -- he's still alive.

I even took him to Friendly's for dinner and we ran an errand at Target. And now I'm sitting here ignoring the HUGE mess he's made in the house. Bald Baby (aka Fluffy Girl) is having a difficult time finding a spot to rest, though LOL!!

BALD BABY

Hannah had her yearly shave down the other day.

Here's a "before"... and here's our "bald baby" !!

SHORTS SLOGAN

Yesterday The Man decided it was going to be "Family Morning" at the grocery. Mind you, this is the ONLY time I have to myself each week, but what the heck -- I'm always up for a challenge, right? I just wanted to make sure HE was, because he has never really seen my whole couponing gig up close & personal. Yeah, he knows I clip & print... and he hears me talk about how I've saved $75 that week, etc... but he's just never seen it in process. As we pulled into the parking lot, I warned him that I consider shopping to be a competitive sport, and he did have the grace to look a little nervous...

Anyway, after he saw me cruising the meat section looking for markdowns to match with coupons and stocking up on the yearly cheese slice sale (the 24 pack is always conveniently $1 right before summer vacation, and the fact that the amount of children in my house multiplies exponentally during said time) and various other couponing BARGAINS (free bbq, salad dressing, $2 California Pizza Kitchen pizzas, etc...)... and then he was the one handing over the coupons and signing the bill.... he said THANK YOU!!

All that time searching out deals online... printing & clipping coupons... reading match-up blogs... and The Man "GETS IT" !! (Bet he'll never do >>THIS<< again!) WAHHOOOOOEYYYYY!! Just wanted to share that little bit of validation with everyone >wink<.

My children have decided that I need a pair of pants that says "Clearance Queen" across the rear.

I was personally relieved that Mouth didn't suggest "Cheap Ass".

(PS: I DID look for some clip art of a pair of shorts with "cheap ass" across the back but couldn't find one. Can't believe there isn't one somewhere on the internet LOL!)

DANCE LIKE NO ONE IS WATCHING...

Wee One & his friend, Evan, only have one more "dance class" this year. They get to hang from the portable bar... roll around with the exercise balls... do stretches... run & hop across the studio... but they have several favorite parts -- and they all seem to come right at the END of class time! First, Miss Milea gives them a sticker... and then they get a stamp on each hand.

Then when they come out of the studio to the Moms, they get a snack & juice box. Wee One is ALL about the snack & juice box! On this particular day, he felt it necessary to rummage in Sullen's clean laundry basket & pull out this tye-dye shirt. He had his hippie groove on that day!

BLOW ME AWAY!

I was purchasing all the things for our "MOPS Summer Survival Kits" and the kids found the extra balloons. Who knew that a bag of balloons from the dollar store would offer so many days of entertainment (& fights over possession of said balloons) ????

UP, UP & AWAYYYYY !!!

The other night was the Pack Meeting where the kids get to launch the rockets they've assembled & decorated on their own time. Mouth (left) did a ying-yang theme with black & white (you can sorta make out the symbol in between his fingers) and Sullen was feeling particularly lazy (either the computer or his book was calling to him -- who can ever tell??) so he just painted his all black & went with that.

Once we got there, Sullen decided he didn't want to launch his rocket -- he just wanted to chase around the other ones coming down. Whatever. I figure it gave him 30 straight minutes of running. So that it didn't totally go to waste, I let Wee One have it to launch.

The Den Leader manning the rocket pad he went to, showed / helped Wee One push down the launch button... and then it was off! Sullen was really great & went & recovered the rocket for him & carried it while it was still hot...

They had a blast that night! Some of the Den Leaders also shot off their personal rockets -- bigger than the kids, OF COURSE -- because, after all, you know how boys are about their toys!! Unfortunately one of the guys lost his rocket in the pond, which was a costly "oops", since it contained a camera in it. There's $90 in the bottom of THAT retention pond!

YOU SCREAM, WE SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM....

.... FOR ICE CREAM!!!

MOMS Club went to tour Maggie Moo's. The kids were REALLY EXCITED about getting ice cream. Not so excited about the tour, and watching him pour some ice cream out of the machine was exquisite torture for them!

The Wee One got to turn the machine on for it to churn the ice cream...

And at the end, he & his buddy, Evan, tried to order a super-duper-deluxe ice cream. The Moms weren't having any of it (we're mean, after all). Seriously, though -- I brought my & Wee One's ice cream to the table and he insisted on having them placed in front of him... and then looked at me, gave me one of his dismissive arm waves, and said, "Go get you ice cream".

No, he didn't share.

The joy of two year olds!

MOMMY'S LITTLE SWEETHEART

For Valentine's Day we had our traditional New Year's Eve dinner - but since the boys were at Camp Gramma Grampa for NYE, we didn't do it then! We had lobster tails & filet - yummmy!

Wee One got a 4-pack of PlayDoh; Mouth & Sullen got Bakugans; and Fluffy Girl got a moo cow toy (which has since been destroyed - oh well!).

The Valentine Fairy gave the family a Flip video camera that I can throw into my purse. I'll have to post some of the more hilarious things that have been recorded on it later....

Best part of Valentines? I still have a child I can dress in heart-warming clothes :) !!!

KA-POW!!

The boys started breaking boards (last quarter - yeah, I'm wayyy behind).

When they break their first board, Sensei signs it, then they sign it, and then we are given instructions on how to display them.

Yes, I have even purchased the shadow frames to display them.

No, they have not been mounted into the shadow frames yet to display them.

Maybe that will be a task for the boys this summer.

BOOM BLOX

Everyone has been having a blast playing the Wii Game "Boom Blox" that we got from the Edwards family. The kids were jumping around so much that Hannah even started trying to hide under the table! (She's the smart one in the house!)

BO BOYS