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29 ottobre UpdateI am so counting the days until XC is over... if for nothing else, it means I'll actually be able to write again as opposed to now when it seems I never have time to do anything.
Things have been good around here. We've been planning and preparing for our 2nd annual Halloween Party.
So far that means we have spent two full evenings carving pumpkins!
So far they are freaking amazing and I am so excited to light them and put them up around our yard. It's been raining a lot though so they've been wrapped in plastic on the back porch.
Here are pictures of SOME of them:
Aren't those amazing???
I can really only take credit for one of those and the rest are everyone's else's marvelous carving abilities...
Also, we have discovered that Andre REALLY likes to EAT pumpkin. AND the best part about it, is it even doesn't make him sick! That's a plus for sure... I imagined cleaning up bright orange dog vomit after the first night... but he handled it well. He also like to like the pumpkins as you are carving them.
 We got SOME of our pumpkins--our BIG BIG one and then other people got some too--from the big pumpkin patch that they have there. They set up games for the kids, and set up all these different photo setups with scarecrows and things and it's really quite spectacular. We took pictures of all of us but they were all with other cameras, but I asked HM to take a few with me in the pumpkins:
He took this one too that he said he was trying to get it so it looked like the carriage was the background but it didn't quite work :)
Anyway, the party should be good. I'm excited for it even though it will be a long night!
As we were driving to the pumpkin patch, Dudey had another one of his amazing moments when he wasn't a punk teenager but he was actually super cool. For some reason we were talking about how the world was so negative and he says, Ya know, sometimes I look at the world and how bad it is and I think, Man, it's about time go home... ya know what I mean?"
Which started this whole conversation about the 2nd Coming and being proud of being a Mormon (which he said "Well I don't care what people think when it comes to that" and HM and I were both silently shocked--Dudey not care what people think????? What have you done with our son????)
He also told me the other day how he thought that perhaps he was maturing because he could now understand the importance of going to college because that was the only way he was going to successful in life... I wasn't sure how to respond really... some response really: what have you done with my son?? :)
He's really doing so much better lately with just us in this house. He's a lot calmer and amazingly enough, he's right. He is growing up a little... he still freaks out sometimes, but he is doing so well. This last quarter's grades just came out and he got 2 As, 2 Bs a C and a D (he flunked his history test the day before the quarter ended so not good but hey, a lot better!!!). This means he is eligible to play soccer this season and I know that will make HM happy. He wanted him to play last year but Dudey was a punk and refused but I think he is going to do it this year. Yay! That means I'll be watching tons of soccer games... but hey, it's all good...
HM's parents are both going to be gone for the holidays so we've been trying to decide where we would spend the holidays. Utah? Alaska? California? Also Dudey has his "real mom" (who I doubt would really miss him anyways but we have to at least give her a chance to be his mom I guess) here in Bakersfield so we hesitate to take him away the whole time and he has his friends here that he of course will miss too terribly if he's away from them too long :) lol... so....
We have finally decided that we are going to be making the trek to Utah for Thanksgiving
And then staying here in Btown for Christmas.
So I don't know what the rest of the family's plans are, but lately i've a heard a lot of dumb excuses about where everyone is going to be over the holidays... so to those of you who are still deciding:
If we can make it all the way from California with a 15 year old, and a dog, in snowy weather we don't like and driving for NINE hours, you can make the whole 2 hour drive to Forsytheville for Thanksgiving dinner!!! If for no other reason, hey, we'll be there  15 ottobre School ProjectsI felt like an official "mom" tonight
Dudey has a 3D model due tomorrow--which of course he didn't tell us about until about 11pm last night and it's due tomorrow--at least it wasn't due today though right?
So we just went out and bought candy and 3 huge foam balls.
He has to make the 5 phases of Mitosis in candy and foam... what joy
We forgot to get straight pins though so he's using super glue and he's already glued his fingers together once... this could be trouble... I think I might go get some real quick... save a trip to the ER and some interesting explaining as so why my son's hand is superglued to foam and candy... lol... 14 ottobre A Few ThoughtsJust a few thoughts.
It's sure nice to not be single. To every event in your life I think there are two sides to it: the quality of BEING the "new" thing and then the LACK of being what you were. For some reason lately, not that I am not grateful to be married, but I am even more grateful that I am not Single.
I remember having bad days and coming home to an empty house--something I didn't have to do this week.
I remember having to always do my own laundry and at the same time, feeling lonely by the fact that I ONLY had my own to do and no one to take care of--also something I didn't have to do this week. I was home alone for awhile yesterday and I took the sheets off our bed and Dudey's and washed them finally--I was so proud of myself.
I remember being tired and trying to figure out what there was to eat for dinner, finally deciding on some Mac&Cheese and a sandwich and then eating alone--didn't have to do that this week.
I remember having a lot of random things to do and feeling like even after I did them, no one would really ever notice or care except me--what I did was noticed this week.
I remember decorating for holidays by myself. When I was finished, people would often comment on how cute it was, etc, but the labor was always alone. I didn't have to do that this week either. Our house is now decorated--a little bit anyway, it's a big house--with Halloween decorations. Lights on the eves, spiderwebs in the bushes, a skeleton on the door, and one window with plastic pictures on it, and plastic pumpkins on the walkway. HM helped me and we actually had a lot of fun.
I remember going everywhere by myself. It wasn't always bad but I think certain decisions are more tired when you have a multitude of them. If you go home, no one notices, if you stay, people know but don't really plan around you because they are also Single and so independant beings. When you're married, you are part of a group, a family, that rotates around you. I liked being connected this week.
I also remember feeling like I was playing the Mom part and the Dad part both. Obviously I didn't have any kids for real, but the male roles of "providing things" and the female roles of "nurturing things" was all rolled into one and there was really no distinction, and not that there necessarily should be, but there was no choice in the matter, there just wasn't. One of the things I love about HM is that we are partners and not just in thought, but heck, he does the dishes just as much, if not more, than I do. He also does the laundry just as often and is almost more vigilent about cleaning and getting things done around the house than I am. This week I left him a grocery list since he wasn't working that day and after asking me all kinds of questions about the details of the list, said in his funny way: "You know, I don't know if I'm gonna have time to go out and do this 'woman stuff,' I've got a lot of manly things to do..." (as he flexes for me)
 He cracks me up...It's nice to be married, but more importantly, it's nice to NOT be Single.  13 ottobre I'm still alive :)I caught up on everyone's blogs today and I thought how grateful I am for everyone I read about and how inspired I am by the stories they tell. I have been so busy lately with everything that I haven't really had any time to write and I miss it. There's something about recounting even your own experiences again that makes them more vivid than before.
Today I'm sitting here in my PJs, still waking up. HM and Dudey have already left and Andre is eating his breakfast. It rained last night and it's a cold morning but a quiet one.
Dudey has Saturday Work today--they give that as punishment at schools here. Teachers can assign it (I have) for tardies or for misbehavior, or of course the Dean and such assign it for various grievances. The kids usually pick up trash, rake flowerbeds, pull weeds, etc. Also, they have the wonderful job of cleaning up the stadium after football games :) (gross).
Last year Dudey had Saturday Work all the time but these days he's doing a lot better with school and grades and most everything, so he hasn't gotten Saturday Work at all this year. This is his 2nd time--I can't remember why the other one was about, tardies?--but anyway, this one was kinda funny.
Dudey gets in the car after football the other day and he tells us he has something to tell you, and you are going to be happy and maybe mad at the same time... Okay...
So first, you have to know, Dudey has this thing about using public bathrooms. He basically refuses to use them at all so when he has to go, he tries whatever tactic he can to get "home" somehow instead of having to use the public bathrooms. We've tried to get him to use ones before lots of time and he has peed at places before in emergencies, but NEVER #2. The only time he has EVER done it is when he had a friend of his "guard" the door. I guess the phobia stems from some fear of being attacked or looked in on? I don't know. I wouldn't want MY friend sitting outside the door while I was pooping... that's for sure, but whatever!
So Dudey tells us, that day after 5th period, he had to go really bad. So he decided he would just buck up and use the bathroom at school. So he specifically went to the bathroom in the PE room because he said it was cleaner and quieter. So he does his business, very good, but obviously it takes him a few minutes and so by the time he finally gets out and is walking to class, he's very late.
So he gets stopped by security right as he's about to go into his class. He just walked from the gym so security asks him if he's been out back there smoking??? Of course the answer is no, and he tries to explain that he just had to use the bathroom (and they would have no idea not knowing Dudey how big a deal that really was) but security is like, well, you better come with me... so they take him down to the office where they pat him down, search his backpack and make him empty out his pockets. They find nothing and finally send him back to class but give him Saturday Work.
HM was kinda upset about all that, but I understood that that day was Principal Partner's Day and so security was a lot stricter because of all the special guests on campus and so being a little more anal-retentive than usual.
So hey, we were so proud of Dudey for his recent accomplishment
lol... but he did have to to Saturday Work today as a result. Oh well...HM is going to help his friend John move, well, John and pregnant wife and little girl, but I didn't go because HM said that he suspected what John needed "help" with was not moving but rather redoing his drywall :) So he said he would go investigate and call me if it was something I could help with. So sometime in here I guess I should get dressed just in case... these are the downsides of having a husband who can repair and do anything around the house. Sometimes people want "our help" just for his skills
 Which honestly, is fine with me, I love that about him.Anyway, I felt kinda bad last night because we were at Dudey's game and I got this message on my phone. The address was an internet address that I didn't know and the picture was a newborn baby. All the message said was "baby girl" I had to stop and think who's baby this was? Both my brothers have just had babies, plus HM's sister just had hers about a week ago, but it was a boy, and L is also pregnant and so is my older sister, and so are a couple people at school, and I had to think for a minute who was close enough to deliver already... oh ya, I guess my sister is about due, duh!
So yay!
Meet my newest neice
   She was born in 40 minutes and she is 8 lbs, 1 oz. She comes in right behind me
She came so close to beating my record! I was born in 35 minutes and was 8 lbs 2 oz
LOL
I don't recommend anyone trying to beat the time record! They gave my mom too much Petosin (sp?) and that's why I was born so fast. So as you can see, she's very beat up, just like I was!
My mom said that they started my sister, and the doctor left thinking it would be a few hours and 40 minutes later, the nurse delivered the baby.
     They all thought she was a boy so the name is not entirely decided at this point, but I hear they are thinking of naming her Lydia.
 I was reading my friend Mitchowl's blog and I was reminded that it is Fall. Nothing has really changed around here. It's a little colder I guess, but nothing really different so far. We went out to dinner for HM's mom's B-day last night and sat outside on the patio
Happily, I am feeling a lot better. I was realy sick with allergies all last weekend and HM was really worried about me. I slept for days and never really seemed to get much better. I had a fever at times and would sleep so long and then barely wake up before I went to sleep again. I felt delirious and miserable and I am happy I don't feel so wasted anymore, even though i still do have allergies kinda. It's nice to be back among the living.
Lately we have been having the best Crock Pot dinners!!! Our oven is broken and until it's fixed, we have been using our crock pot that we got as a wedding present. I recently bought this whole cookbook with Slow Cooker recipes and honestly, since I've been sick this last week, I started using it more because I didn't have the energy to really cool a big deal thing. So I would just throw some stuff in the crock pot and go back to bed. Well gratefully, these turned out AMAZING and HM and Dudey have been so excited lately about our dinners that it's hard to tell them it's the easiest thing in the world to do :). We had honey glazed chicken on Sunday--honey, cream of mushroom soup and soy sauce and throw the chicken in there and there you go. Then another night we had Beef Stroganoff--again SUPER easy and so so good...we ate that for DAYS. Then Thursday we had the missionaries over and had Chicken and Rice, also very easy and it came out very very good. We want to try the Orange Chicken next--1 can of orange soda, soy sauce and add the chicken. That's my kind of recipe!!! Lately I feel like such a geek because cookbooks are my favorite books to read :) |
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