So It Seems Like Everytime I Post...

It's on SNL. So, there were no Palin skits this week but Jon Hamm hosted (I love Jon Hamm...and Mad Men) and this cracked me up.

Sarah Palin...Again

It just gets better and better.



And on Weekend Update...All the Mavericks in the house put your hands up! LOL!!

Weekend Catch-up

It was hard to take the kids back to school this morning since they had a four day weekend. We kept them home on Thursday for Yom Kippur and then they already had Friday off for a teacher in-service. I have to say that it was a really nice weekend...lots of relaxing and some good family time.

Yesterday, we went to see The Lion King at the Music Hall downtown. I've had these tickets for about 4 months and I was so scared that we'd lose them, but we didn't. Jacob said that he couldn't sleep Saturday night because he was so excited.

The play was awesome. The puppetry was great and it really looked like there were giraffes walking across the stage. I will also admit that I cried three times. I cried in the same places I cried in the movie. Yes, I cry watching The Lion King. I bet you do too...you just don't want to admit it! ;) The kids really liked it and couldn't wait to get to school today to tell their friends about it. I think that even Mike was surprised at how well he enjoyed it. If you get the chance, I highly recommend seeing it.

I broke down and signed Hannah up for Daisy Girl Scouts. Their meetings are right after school so it shouldn't add too much stress. She has her first meeting tomorrow.

Jacob's teacher wants him to do after school math tutoring because his MAP scores qualified him for it. Ummm...his MAP scores were in the 97th percentile. We'll skip the math tutoring this year.

Daniel officially tested out of his math program...finally. I never thought he should be in the math program, but that's just me. He's also almost done with the reading specialist. I am a little nervous because we have parent teacher conferences next week but I'm quite sure that if there was a problem, I'd know about it by now. Mrs. G is not someone to hold back.

Picture Day

How funny is it that on a post called "Picture Day," there are no pictures? LOL! Anyway, today is picture day for the kids. I meant to take a picture of them before they left for school but we were struggling to get out the door this morning. So, you'll have to wait until the pictures come back.

Daniel told me that he wanted to look "like a gentleman" for photos. He also wanted me to brush his hair so that he was "handsome." He cracks me up. So, he got his handsome hair and a blue button down shirt and, indeed, looked like a gentleman. Jacob told him that he "looks like Dad." LOL! I have to admit, he did!

I have been a cleaning machine this week. I even rented a Rug Doctor to steam clean all of the carpets. I am so sore and tired, but the house looks awesome. I really hope that I can keep it up so that the next time I deep clean, it doesn't take me forever.

Now, I'm going to make some of Deb's apple pie filling. I was going to do it yesterday but I walked out of the store without my apples! I did get some this morning when I dropped off the Rug Doctor. I wish I felt comfortable with my canning skills because I'd can some...I'm terrified that I'm going to kill my family with some strange bacteria because I didn't sterilize everything right, so I'm going to freeze it instead.

Dogsitting

I'm watching Tia Sophia for our friends, Val and Karl, while they're at the lake this weekend. This dog is so cute that I had to post a photo of her.

You've got to love friends that give wine as a thank you!

Look At Me!!! I'm Posting for the Third Day in a Row!!!

The only thing I hate about this time of year is that it really flares up Hannah's asthma. I have to admit, though, that it's much better this year than it has been in years past. We haven't had to make an ER run, which is awesome. I did take her in to the pediatrician yesterday because she's been coughing a lot and I can't get it under control with just the nebulizer or the inhaler.

Poor Hannah's a walking steroid right now. Between the Orapred (for just a couple of days), Flovent (until the end of November) and Albuterol (and her nightly Singulair), it's been hard to keep track of what she's taking. I had to make a big chart and put it on the fridge.

The school nurse was thrilled when I told her the spacer and inhaler that I sent with Hannah could stay at school because I made sure to have doubles. I guess there aren't many people that do that and she said that it's hard to remember to always send the meds back home.

She's already sounding so much better. I'd just like for her to be able to get a good night's sleep! We go back for a recheck in two weeks. She'll also get her flu shot then. She's not at all happy about that.

Birthday Wishes

Happy birthday to my father-in-law, Ed and my niece, Rachel! Hope it's a good one!!

Another SNL...

Tina Fey has Sarah Palin down!!! This just kills me!

Well, There You Go...

I will love it when I don't have to start a post with an apology for being gone for a while. Anyway...

Friday night, I got to go to the Maroon 5 concert with my friend, Roxanne. We got all dolled up and even rented a limo so that we wouldn't worry about how much we had to drink. The concert was awesome. Counting Crows and Augustana opened the show. After, Roxanne and I headed to Steak 'n' Shake and had a lovely dinner of steakburgers and chili. I still think that's really funny.

Saturday morning, I woke up and thought my leg felt sore. I pulled back the blankets and saw this... I have no idea where they came from. And they hurt so bad!!! So strange! But I'd take them all over again if it meant that I got to go to another Maroon 5 concert!!!

Sarah Palin

Now, you know how much I love Sarah Palin, but this is really funny (in case you missed it on Saturday)...

Well, We Didn't Blow Away...

It's been raining and dreary for the past couple of days now. I picked the kids up from school yesterday and about 10 minutes after we got home, the weather radio went off for a Tornado Watch. Hannah begins her little freak out but calms down a little after I remind her of what a watch means. Mike calls to tell me that he's going to work out and then head home. That's fine. Just before 5pm, Jacob starts screaming that there's a Tornado Warning (we were watching the Weather Channel). A second later, the weather radio goes off again for the Warning. Ugh. We listen and find out that it's for NW Johnson County. Not for us. Okay. I still step outside to get a look...no sirens or anything...we should be okay. Jacob turns on Gary Lezak and he sees a cell heading out of Miami County (just to our south) and into Johnson County that will probably hit us. Great.

The weather radio goes off again. Another Tornado Warning for that cell entering Johnson County. I look at the kids and they've got their valuables (blankets, Nintendo DS games, Jacob's violin) and Jacob's seriously looking for the pets. That's when the sirens start. It really starts raining hard and, after looking at the radar, I'm not convinced it's quite basement time yet.

Mike calls to tell me that they closed the Fitness Center and he's heading home. I told him to hang out until the storm's passed...I'd give him a call. The radar shows that the storm is almost to us so, the kids and I head to the basement.

I'm still not sure about this tornado thing, so I head back upstairs to take another look. Sirens are still going off (they went off about 4-5 times) but everything looks to be east of us. Mike calls to ask if he can come home yet and I tell him that Gary says there's a possible tornado around 143rd and Nall, headed to where Mike works. He says that he'll wait for the all-clear and I tell the kids they can come back up.

Not five minutes later, the weather radio goes off again for another Tornado Warning. Hannah's crying at this point and I have to assure her that this one is also not for us. I call Mike to tell him it's okay for him to leave and we try to go on with our evening.

Ultimately, there were a couple of touchdowns but nothing in our immediate area. I completely forgot about the second tornado season. Hopefully, the rest of fall won't be this active. Now, we get ready for Ike, which won't be fun after the 5 inches we've had in the past couple of days.

What Day Is This?!?

Bobbi and Ed came in last weekend for a visit. It was nice to see them since it's been a while. It was also nice to have a stretch of days where we didn't have to do anything. That's not to say it was light on drama, because there was certainly a ton, but it had nothing to do with Bobbi and Ed. Of course, that drama continued throughout the week but that's neither here nor there. It's just what happens when you have friends you care about a lot. Anyway, we had a very nice visit and, as always, it was too short. They flew back to Chicago on Monday and we went back to reality on Tuesday.

I started feeling sick on Monday evening. I've been dealing with this whole allergy/cold thing that's really beginning to make me mad. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to deal with this again this year. Ugh.

Hannah thinks it's way cool that a tropical storm shares her name. She's been running around saying, "I'm a hurricane!" It's been driving Daniel nuts. He got so jealous that he finally yelled, "well hurricanes aren't the most powerful thing in the world. Tornadoes are worse!" They were totally cracking me up.

I didn't workout on Tuesday because I just didn't feel well enough, but I've been in for the rest of the week. I have yet to lose any weight but I've lost a couple of inches here and there. I guess that's more important anyway. I'm also losing my back rolls which is always a good thing. I just can't believe that I'm up to an hour on the elliptical. That's crazy!!! I also discovered the steam room at the center this week. It's my new favorite thing. A nice steam is so nice and I can actually breathe through my nose for about an hour after! LOL!

Last week we found about 10 monarch caterpillars in the milkweed. We decided to bring them in as well. We got a better container for them and most have turned into a chrysalis. What was really cute was as we were collecting them, a couple of neighbor girls came by to see what we were doing and asked if they could take one home. I talked to their moms and they said it was fine so I sent them home with a caterpillar and a big bunch of milkweed. They've been asking me a lot of questions about how long it takes and whatnot. I was so impressed with Jacob who helped answer some of Beth's questions. She told me today that he told her to look for when the caterpillar turns into a J shape on the top of the container and she said that he was right. He's been paying attention. I'm just loving this!

Jacob's had two weeks of Wednesday Keshet classes. He fought me hard the first week but didn't give me a hard time at all this week. Thankfully, he's looking forward to Sunday School starting up this weekend.

All three are doing really well in school so far. I have yet to hear anything from Daniel's teacher and I've seen her quite a bit. She's not one that holds anything back on that sort of thing either. They all seem to be doing pretty well, which is a huge relief. Poor Hannah's just exhausted but she's still getting used to the whole full day thing. Starting next week I'll be helping for an hour once a week in the school's library. The second graders have never done Accelerated Reader before and they need help learning how to choose the right books. I'll be helping out with that. I'm looking forward to it. The kids love running into me at the school. I'm excited that I can help out more with stuff like this. Full day kindergarten is a wonderful thing.

Jacob starts orchestra next week. Only they don't call it orchestra, they call it strings. Either way, he chose the violin and was sized for one last week. He'll get his violin on Monday and his first class is on Tuesday. He had to sign a contract for the teacher that said he's committed to practice 10 minutes a day. I liked that. Anyway, he's excited. Daniel told me that he'd like to learn the trumpet. He's got a few years until he can start (5th grade) but trumpet's perfectly fine with me. I don't care what you play, just that you play something. Except for drums. I just don't think I could handle the drums.

We start jiu jitsu reflex classes tomorrow. I'm about 6 classes away from my second stripe. Master Dave said that he'd like for me to test for my blue belt before the end of the year. I just don't see how that's going to happen but we'll see. And Daniel has his first football game tomorrow. He just loves football and is so excited about the game. I can't wait to see it all.

So, I guess that's about it from here for now. I'll try to do a better job posting!

Crazy Crazy Crazy

Life's been nuts since school started back up. I've been hitting the gym every morning which has been making me feel pretty good. I've already been able to go 25 minutes on the arc trainer (a cross between a stairmaster and an elliptical) which is up from barely 10 minutes last week. I'm still not able to lift much on my strength training days, but I haven't been doing that as often so that'll take a little more time. I'm just excited that I'm taking this step and Jacob's told me that he's proud of me. That's enough to keep going.

I had signed up to be Daniel's co-room mom this year. I don't really mind being the co-room mom because the responsibilities are very minimal. Anyway, I go to the big Room Mom pow wow last week and came out of it being Hannah's head room mom and Daniel's co-room mom. Luckily, Hannah's teacher is fairly easy going and doesn't need me to do too much but I don't know exactly how I'm going to be in two places at once (their parties). I can't stress out about it.

I'm sad because a note came home about Girl Scouts for Hannah and I just can't do it this year. If we could add a few more hours to the day, we could add it in but I just don't see how we can do it right now. She seems to be okay with the fact that she'll join in first grade. Hopefully.

Jacob is now old enough to join the orchestra at school. He has decided to learn to play the violin. Luckily, it's all during the school day. Mike doesn't understand why I find it so important that all of the kids play an instrument. I just think it makes you such a well rounded individual. Anyway, he'll be starting that in a couple of weeks. He's excited.

The basement is killing me. It's taking way longer than I ever anticipated. It would have gone faster if I had used latex paint instead of oil based. I will be using latex paint on the main living part of the basement. I'm really looking forward to getting it done. I've been given an unofficial deadline of Saturday and I think I just might pull it off. Fingers seriously crossed. I am excited about how it's turning out, though.

I reunited with a college friend, Melisa, on Facebook a couple of months ago. She's way out in Oregon now, but her parents still live in the Kansas City area and she came to visit this past weekend. We were able to get together for lunch on Friday. It was really awesome to catch up with her. It was like we had been in touch for the last ten years, which we hadn't. Yet another reason to love Facebook.

Photos for Bobbi

Here are a couple of photos from the first day of school yesterday.

The kids before leaving for school
Hannah gets ready to do her first bit of work as a kindergartener.

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for the kids. This has to be the first time that I've ever seen a school start on Monday. Love it! Anyway, we got to the school a little early so that I could drop the kids off at their classrooms.

Jacob wouldn't let me walk him in...I guess he's too old for that now. Daniel was fine with me walking him to his class until we actually got there. At that point, he pretended that he didn't know me. Oh well. I then walked Hannah to her room. I wasn't prepared for the reading of The Kissing Hand by Hannah's teacher and walked out of the school in tears. She was so excited and looked so happy when I left and I can't wait to hear how her day went.

After dropping the kids off, I headed over to meet Mike at the Fitness Center. I couldn't get an appointment to actually join until Wednesday so I went in on a visitor's pass. One of the trainers took my blood pressure and heart rate (both good!) and showed me how to use some of the machines. She then let me go on my own. I managed 40 minutes on the treadmill and 10 minutes on the elliptical machine before I was done. I'm excited because they'll put a nice plan together for me so that I can work the areas that need help. I'm excited and I hope that I can stick with it.

I Was Heading To Bed...

and I decided to check on the monarchs. I found this...



Can you see the others hanging there just waiting to come out? I can't wait until the kids see in the morning!

Here We Go...

We had lots to do up at the school today. This morning was the PTO registration stuff. Unlike last year, they didn't have the class lists posted which was kind of obnoxious. We picked up our school supplies (our school lets you order them through the school so you always have exactly what you need and it's all wrapped up together so there's no rushing around to pick it up), signed up for a couple committees (of course) and headed home. Jacob had Ambassador training at 3:30 and we picked him up 45 minutes later. They finally posted the class lists at 4 and we got to see who they were going to have this year.

Two years ago, Jacob had Mrs. G for 2nd grade and Daniel had Mrs. T for kindergarten. This year, Daniel has Mrs. G for 2nd grade and Hannah has Mrs. T for kindergarten. I think that's pretty funny because there are 3 kindergarten and 4 2nd grade teachers. I've heard great things about Jacob's teacher, so I'm hoping he has a great year.

This evening, they held the back to school fair. Jacob was working as an Ambassador for the first quarter of it so I took Daniel and Hannah into the gym for a little while (it was raining so they brought some stuff inside). I'd seen some of the Ambassadors lined up in the hallway so I went out to see if I could find Jacob. I found him coming up the cafeteria stairs. I went up to him to say hello and he stopped, looked at me and said, "not now, Mom. I'm giving a tour." It was really cute.

So, I think we're now set for the school year to start on Monday. I still don't know where the summer went.

Last Week of Vacation

This is the last week of vacation for the kids (I can't just say the boys anymore since Hannah starts too!) The only one of the three that is excited is Hannah. The boys desperately want me to homeschool. LOL! They don't realize that actual homeschooling is different than the couple of worksheets I've been having them do this summer.

I have to admit that I'm torn on sending them back to school. As crazy as things are now, they're going to get worse once school opens back up. Cub Scouts and MOPS start back up again...Hannah switches to Tuesday evening gymnastics (you'd think they'd have a Saturday class!), Jacob starts Wednesday evening Hebrew school and we continue football and TKD. You know what, though, I've always liked having a lot of things to do. Aside from a football game for Daniel on Saturdays, our Friday through Sunday is clear (okay, so there's Sunday School).

However, I do get to start Mike's gym on Monday (right honey?) and I'll have more time to really bang out the basement (I'm about 1/4 of the way through the playroom). And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually get this house clean. Here's a picture of the playroom with one coat on...

Anyway, Daniel's loving football. We'll see just how much he loves it once they switch to practice with pads on. They've been doing conditioning practices up until Friday. That still makes me laugh.

Hannah had TKD testing on Saturday. She's going for her high green belt. It was strange that the boys didn't test, but they can't go until October. Once they get their mid brown, they can't test again until February. If they get their high brown at that point, it'll be at least another six months (so next August at the earliest) before they can go for their recommended black belts. My guess is that Daniel will sit at high brown for a long time while Mike and Jacob get theirs fairly quickly. Who knows, though.

We had our block party on Saturday, too. It was fun but it kind of bothered me that there were so many people that aren't on our street that came. Instead of neighbors hanging out with neighbors, our neighbors hung out with the people they brought. We had also been invited to Stephen and Roxanne's for the UFC fight, so we left the block party early and headed over there.

It seems that we never leave their house before 1AM and Saturday was no exception. Mike had TKD friends there, I had Jiu Jitsu friends there and the kids had Quinn and Jett to play with. I love hanging out with them. Good wine, good food, great friends.

Almost a Week

Since the big flood of '08. We're all dried out and now we have to figure out how to put everything back together. I'm not interested in putting carpet back down there. I've seen how much work carpet is when it floods and I don't want to have to go through that again. Actually, I don't want to have to worry about the carpet every time it rains. So, I've sort of convinced Mike to paint the concrete floor instead.

I've been talking to my friends about it and many of them have done similar things themselves. I have one friend that stained her concrete to look like terra cotta tiles. She put grout lines in and everything. Anyway, they say that it's pretty easy to do and the results are great. Plus, we wouldn't have to worry about carpet. If it floods again, we just suck up all of the water and put down some fans. I like that.

I've been given the playroom as my way of showing Mike how good it can look. The first step is an etcher (which sounds scary but you just paint it on), then you primer it and then paint. The last step is putting on a top coat that makes it all shiny. The kids and I have decided to paint the playroom floor white and put down circles and "swirlies" (Jacob's word) in primary colors. We'd then put down some Flor carpet tiles to give the kids a soft spot to play. In my head, it looks awesome. I just hope Mike likes it.

I got my first Jiu Jitsu stripe last night. I'm now a little over 1/4 of the way to my blue belt!! It's amazing what a little black piece of tape will do for your confidence level. I can't believe how much I'm enjoying it.

For My Crafty Sisters...

Okay. Jacob brought home a tie-dyed shirt that he made at camp. I haven't done a thing with it because it's freaking me out a little. Jacob swears that they said to run it in apple juice and vinegar before washing. A lot of what I've read says you should just use vinegar. Some sites say just wash the thing in cold water, then in hot water.

HELP!!!! I have no idea what to do and he'd like to wear the thing before he grows out of it!!! Any suggestions?