Greetings From Bufordsburg

I Want Candy

Grumpy Batman, a punk cheerleader and Batgirl.

Yup. We're still alive. I was doing another scrapbook layout-a-day challenge in October, so something had to give. I guess that would be the blog. I did manage to complete 31 scrapbook pages, but boy, you should see the piles of laundry!

Had a nice Halloween. The plan was for the whole family to dress in Batman garb, but that fell apart when I couldn't find a Poison Ivy costume for B. I was really hoping to get a picture of T in his Robin costume - complete with green tights. Oh yeah - I would have forced him.

Having a hard time believing it's November. Thanksgiving is 3 weeks away. We're I'm back on the 'finish the home improvement projects' bandwagon, so I've been keeping myself busy with painting and moving furniture. If only I could get one room completely finished. Cousin Annie is coming to visit the day after Thanksgiving, so I've at least got to clean up the messes. And there are lots of messes...

I hope you had a great and safe Halloween. Now that the candy is almost gone, the girl scout cookies get delivered this weekend. I'll have 300 boxes of cookies in my garage. Talk about temptation. So much for the diet.

 

September?

Umm, can someone tell me what happened to September? 15 seconds ago the kids started school. Now it appears that I have lost the entire month. So I had to get one blog entry in, just under the wire.

This last weekend we had birthday parties for all three of the hoodlums kids. Demonboy's birthday is in August, but this place becomes a ghost town at that time, so we delay his party until after school starts. This year we rented out the local theater on Sunday morning for 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'. Cute movie. Best part was, the kids got all the popcorn and soda they could handle at 10am, and I didn't have to worry about anyone walking out of the theater. At the end of the movie they all danced up on the stage, ate cake (more sugar anyone?), and we sent them home. Go home, open presents, mom and dad collapse on the couch until the Bears game. Niiiice.

Monday was the girls' actual birthday, AND the schools were closed for Yom Kippur, so we went to the local arcade/party place for the girls' party. I really don't care for the arcade, but it was the only place the girls could agree on this year. At least it wasn't terribly crowded, and all 25 girls had a great time riding the bumper cars, doing 'sand art', and playing skeeball. Mom and dad collapsed after that one too.

Kids' birthday parties make for a loooong weekend. I'm so glad it's over. Until next year, of course.

I'll catch up with September happenings in the next few days. Just wanted you to know that we're all still alive.

Smile

 

People joked with T the entire walk out of the park with that silly banana. Especially the men.

My husband is a dork.

For the last 3 years, he's worked way too hard. His stress level hovers around outrageous, especially when the market starts falling apart. Because of work and family, in the last 3 years he has spent very little time on himself, doing things he enjoys. And that makes him crabbier and more stressed. He doesn't have enough quality time with the kids, and couple's time? Well, that's almost non-existent these days. Just not enough hours in the day.

This morning I found this email he sent me before he went to bed last night.

He may be a dork, but he's MY dork. And I'm lucky to have him.

Hare-brained

For at least a week I've been asking T to cut Demonboy's hair. He doesn't like going to Supercuts, and Daddy makes it much more fun than some stranger in a salon. Db was really excited to show me his new cut:

 

The side view: (don't know why this is so blurry)

 

Not surprisingly, I made him cut it off.

A very quiet weekend for us. Hurricane Bill paid us a visit, and it rained all day on Saturday. Lots of branches down and water everywhere. It was a bit nicer today and we were able to mess around in the pool for a while, but nothing too exciting to note.

Looking forward to a week of packing and organizing for our trip next week. LOTS of laundry. Have to call the Dr. in the am for Db, who is complaining of ear pain. Of course - we're going on vacation!

And I would be remiss if I did not mention that our friend John has won the Royal Hawk Club Championship once again. Congrats! (If you email me a picture, I'll post it!)

Have a great Monday morning.

Growing Weary

 

I love the tongue hanging out. He was not happy that he didn't catch him.

Is it physically possible for a mom's head to explode into a million pieces?

Tonight K informed me that she doesn't know when the last time was she brushed her teeth. the last time she knows for certain she had her toothbrush was last weekend at the sleepover. How totally gross is that? The worst part is that this isn't the first time it's happened, and the last time we read her the riot act. Ugh.

I'm so tired of having the same conversations (lectures) with my kids. They just keep looking at me with that glazed 'whatever' look on their faces. And it's supposed to rain all weekend, which means we have to find things to do INSIDE.

20 more days. 7 of them on vacation. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I ♥ Faces Contest - Bubbles

 

 

I finally got up enough courage to enter one of the contests at this awesome photo blog. Not the best photo eva, but I'm happy with it. This week's theme is 'bubbles', and I'm sure just about everyone with kids is doing the traditional blowing bubbles shot. I'd like to say I wanted to be different, but the truth is I couldn't get any kids to agree to model for me. So, I improvised.

Happy Tuesday.

Slip slidin' away

 

A rare moment of tranquility?

Please forgive the blog blackout the last 2 days. I spent my weekend doing checkout dives for my scuba certification. Fun, fun, fun. Not.

Both days I had to get up at the butt-crack of dawn and drive an hour to a 'lake' (i.e., filled in quarry) in PA. There I spent 6 hours getting in and out of the chilly water and doing various circus tricks while submerged. Did I mention the 65 degree water? For that I had to wear a wet suit even thicker than the one I so exquisitely posed in my picture last weekend. It was so hard to get on that I got rubber burns on my fingers from trying to hoist it up my legs. Oooh, I was so cheery!

At one point I was 30' down on the teaching platform, waiting my turn to do the required task, which involved ascending to the surface. I watched as the instructors took the other student up, up, up. And waited for them to come back down, down, down. After a few moments, I started to believe they were going to leave me down there alone, possibly as some sick scuba joke. My claustrophobia began to kick in, and I started thinking crazy thoughts like - gee, should I go up? Should I start crying? Scuba sucks! WHY DID THEY LEAVE ME ALONE?????  And because I'm such a quick thinker, it finally occurred to me to maybe look around. Lo and behold, the other half of the class was right behind me, with the last instructor. Thank God they can't read minds. I'm such a dork.

The best part of the experience happened after the last dive. The facility recently expanded, and now offers a water park for the kiddies. It was located to the left of our tent area, behind the trees. We could hear the kids squealing all day while we had our discussions. While we were dissecting our last dive, we turned to the left, and through the trees, one of the big slide/rock wall thingys had broken free and was slowly floating away.... They chased it down with a kayak and pulled it back even more slowly. I don't want to know if there were any kids on there!

While returning my gear today I was discussing our upcoming vacation with the store owner. I jokingly said that after all my hard work, the resort probably wouldn't even check for my certification card. She told me very seriously that she was familiar with the resort, and knows for a fact that they never do.

If only she could have told me that 3 weeks ago?

At Least the Roof isn't Leaking

 

We have 2 dishwashers in our kitchen. Both are falling apart, but the 'main' one is the worst. This morning I was tired of fighting with the bottom basket in the 'main' dishwasher, so I went to the second dishwasher to swap out the baskets. To my surprise - I found a smelly, unwashed and totally grody load of dishes in there, along with a pair of Demonboy's Crocs. ?

Does this kinda stuff happen to anyone else, or is it just my house?

- - - - - - - - -

Our refrigerator is on the blink again. The cooling unit was leaking freon and had to be replaced, which meant 2 visits from the refrigerator repair man. (thankfully with pants that fit.) The second visit was scheduled for this morning - AT 8 A.M.! WTH? What kind of repair person shows up at 8am? I had to have all the food removed from the fridge before he arrived. And you know what? HE WAS EARLY! Ugh.

All that before I even had my coffee. Double ugh.

Shadows in the Rain

 

Mr. Grumpy visits Starbucks.

We signed Demonboy up for football this year. They started practice yesterday evening, after dinner. It was really hot, and he got a good workout. Today he complained all day that he didn't want to go to practice, 'cuz his legs hurt and he was tired. My response? "Suck it up, buttercup". And then various references to Brian Urlacher and his training regimen. Which were totally ignored. Because he's 6.

It threatened rain all day today - dark and gloomy started right around 10. It was icky enough to keep us from going in the pool all day, so there were lots of "I'm bored" choruses going on. But it didn't rain a drop all day. Db had to be at football practice by 6, and wouldn't you know it, it started raining as we were pulling out of the garage. Being a newbie football mom, and apparently delusional, I thought they would cancel practice. I felt the cold chill of reality when I arrived at the field and everyone was dressed for a hurricane. Me? I didn't even have an umbrella.

I know they're trying to build character, yadda yadda. But practice in the rain? At 6? I must be a "weenie baseball mom". So we stood there kvetching about the rain and whiny kids for 90 minutes. At least other moms weren't thrilled either. And it turns out I'm not the only one who forgot to bring an umbrella. Misery loves company, you know.

 

One of the moms brought her new puppy to practice and I puppysat for a while. When DB and T came over for their his water break, I tried to convince him that it was our puppy. I even got K in on the hoax. It was kinda funny watching T's blood pressure rise as I calmly explained that we had a new dog. He failed to see the humor. I had a laugh.

Hey, call me mean, but you gotta do something while standing in the rain, right? 

Countin' down

 

Look who lost his first tooth? He was SO excited at the idea of the Tooth Fairy giving him $$!

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I didn't think I was going to make it through the rest of the summer without checking myself in for some "rest and relaxation". I had a mini migraine, and K had a spaz day.

By the time I got out of bed, all the kids had already lost television viewing for the day. K had a total of 30 minutes of time outs, and B had 20. There were slapfights, arguments, chase-while-screaming incidents, and total disregard for anything I had to say. they were insolent, rude, attitudnal and in my face the entire day. By the end of the day, I was wondering if there were any military schools that had summer camp availability for 7 year old girls. If I had found one online, she would have been there first thing this morning.

Luckily, today was a different story. Oh, they still lost television for the day (they can't seem to figure out that 'get dressed/make your bed/brush your teeth/clean up your room BEFORE coming downstairs' rule), and they still managed to bicker a bit. But they seemed to be in a much better mood, and they didn't truly fight at all. I had to take them to Target for some things, and they behaved so well, I bought them all something. I never even had to threaten to leave them on the side of the highway. A successful day for us.

And tomorrow? Well, that's always a crap shoot, isn't it?

MySpace Countdown Clocks