The Great Surprise

So, it has been a tough week. We have been hitting the books pretty hard in school and trying to retain information for more than just a fleeting moment, which for mine can be a challenge at times. To add to that, The Beez started running mystery fever Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, which meant that her and I stayed home from church. I thought I would just enjoy my time with her, since although she has had a fever, her only other symptom was wanting to be attached to me permanently the last 48 hours. So, after the kitchen was cleaned up from dinner, we laid on the couch and watched Jon & Kate Plus 8...a favorite of us both. The husband called a few times to check in on us, and then after church took the boys to Sonic for ice cream. I told him Beez was in our bed watching tv and I was about to jump in the shower. He reminded he still had to get milk but that he would be home shortly.
So, there I am in the shower, washing my hair, and honestly in pretty deep thought, when the shower curtain is pulled back...and SURPRISE...my sister from California...is standing in my bathroom....with a VIDEO CAMERA!!!! Yeah, you read it right....me in the shower, her with a video camera....it was pretty HILARIOUS...But how surprised and happy can you be when your little sister is here for a surprise visit...but you are kind of shocked about the whole naked in the shower with a video camera?????
To be honest...it was PG-13 at most...but come on...I was trying to be happy shocked surprised...but I just stood there wrapped in the curtain, hair full of lathered shampoo, saying, "Okay...really...OMGosh...Kelly....How did????....Hey did you know????...turn the camera off....really....Okay....Kelly...the camera"
So the moral of this surprise story is this...Surprises are great...come visit us anytime....I love surprises....and my husband knew about it, helped plan it, and kept it a TOTAL secret...but come on...in the shower...give the girl some heads up...you can only be so happily surprised while naked in the shower.

Homeschool Haiku

This morning we were learning about Haiku Poetry...which if you don't already know is simple poetry that is bound by only one rule...it must have 17 syllables divided into three lines, 5-7-5 respectively.

Here was mine:

Bright sun beams aglow
Shining through my broken heart
Chasing grief away.


I was totally laughing that my poem had such a solemn and sad feeling about it...but when you have to fit the syllables in, you just have to go with the flow. It is ironic that this post follows the one about my hubby falling asleep on the couch prior to our date...but rest assured, we made it, dinner was wonderful, as was grocery shopping!!!!

Big Daddy and Hot Momma

So, my wonderful husband asked me to go out with him tonight. I think we are going to try a new Hibachi Steak house tonight...which means SHRIMP AND SCALLOPS for me...yummo!!!!

And even though the night will also include groceries, Sam's Club and Lowe's...I am not going to complain.

But then I walked into the living room and found this....


All dressed up and sacked out on the couch...Can't I get even a little enthusiasm?

Stop the Presses!!!! The Fair is in Town!!!!!

It is that time of year again...the fair is in town. To be "fair" I should start off saying that I HATE THE FAIR!!!! I really do, and I would be fine to never step foot in that place again as long as I live. I am not trying to be ugly when I say that I HATE THE FAIR, I guess it is just that when you grow up minutes from Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm...a fair on wheels just doesn't float your boat. It also does not help that I also grew up going to the Orange County Fair...which, in a word is AMAZING, so this little rinky dink thing they call a fair, really is not "fair" to the really great fairs that exist elsewhere.


That being said, I went for the fam. The boys love the deadly...I mean crazy rides and the daughter will ride anything that they will let her on. She was riding SpaceMountain and Big Thunder Mountain(a la Disneyland) when she was a month past her three year old birthday(she met the height requirement)

So here are the pics from last night...


While I was striking this self pose....

Jake was busy bumper carting

This was the Ferris Wheel...

Same ride different kid

This is me supporting the family from the safety of the most uncomfortable benches ever made...

That is Crack on the left and Snake on the right...mystery kid in the middle


Husband and The Beez

Pork its whats for dinner!!!! Yeah I went there!!! I was hoping that "Anonymous" might be reading

The UGLIEST hen/chicken/fowl like bird ever...Snake said it had a 'fro-hawk

Beautiful pic....horrible pukey ride....

....but they rode it anyway

The Beez and a friend take flight

same uncomfortable benches...waiting on another equally unsafe ride to be over

Darkness fell and I was ready to head home

A clown on a bike did make my day by handing out Double Bubble...which under normal pleasant circumstances I would never chew...but blowing bubbles with pasty bubble gum seemed like a possible highlight of my night...so I went for it.

Are there any other Moms and Dads that undertake awful wastes of money and time for the pleasure of their offspring???? I know I am not alone in this boat. If not the fair...what is it for you???

Politics As Usual???

Did you watch the debate tonight??? I missed the very beginning, but the DVR is my friend and I will play catch up in the a.m. I can not wait to see what the polls say in the morning and I am even more excited about the BIG day in 4 weeks.

One question???? Did Biden say "Bosniacs" instead of "Bosnians"??? And I loved the "Say it ain't so Joe." comment from Palin.

Did the banter change your mind???

Homechooling Hiccups

Just when school is starting to run smoothly, you might as well start counting the days or hours until the bottom falls out!!! Usually, we only have one kid at a time in utter turmoil...and usually that means it is manageable. But, this week all three kids melted down at the same time. Here is a synopsis of our week so far...and it is only Wednesday:

Micah decided that math is only fun to do when it is ones and tens....not hundreds. She is balking at the idea of the 100's place so as of tomorrow we will work on reading and writing but give the 100's a rest. In and of itself, really it is not that big of a deal...but when she was so enjoying the first 9 units of math, to hit a wall was kind of a bummer.

Jared decided that bad attitude and selfishness were his main subjects this week....and let me tell you, he was getting straight A's. With him it is always about the drama...really, I do not know where he gets it from !!!!

And as for Jake...well he decided that he didn't know how to do division...AGAIN!! At least once a year, he "forgets" something truly basic...something we have been doing for YEARS!!!

Add to all of these the fact the Lord is TRYING to do somethings in my life...but I happen to be fighting him tooth and nail...and the fact the today marks the 30 day countdown until my sister moves away...and that I have not been feeling 100% and I am officially done for.

Here is to Grace, given and received over the next few days.

Jackpot!!!!

If you read this post you would remember that our son Jake is addicted to chapstick. Really he is, he doesn’t go anywhere without it. He doesn’t even get out of bed without it, and he even refuses to wear anything without pockets, because then he couldn’t have it with him at ALL TIMES.
Anyway, a few years ago, prior to his addiction, I started using Oralabs ChapIce-Medicated. It is amazing!!!! It goes on really smooth, and never gets sticky like Chapstick brand does. So, that of course was what he used. But then the well ran dry!!! Walmart stopped selling Oralabs, and although I did find one discount store that still sold Oralabs, they did not carry the Medicated kind. I even resorted to trying to find it online….but no luck. So for the last two years, I have always been on the lookout.

Well, Thursday we had some time to kill so we headed to a local store that sells inventory from stores that have either closed down or have been bought out through an insurance claim. It is a hit or miss but we have been known to find some amazing bargains from time to time. As we were meandering through the aisles, Jake abruptly stopped and said, “Wait Mom!!! Look at this!!!!” There he was digging through a Rubbermaid box as if he were searching for true golden treasure. And boy did he ever hit the jackpot!!! There, at the bottom of the box, underneath mounds of gaudy lip gloss, were hundreds of tubes of OraLabs Lip balm(okay, really there were only like fifty)

If you don’t know me or my family outside of this blog, you might assume that we just dug in and picked out a few and went on our merry way. But that would not really be blog worthy, and I do not like to disappoint. So here is the truth. WE WENT CRAZY!!! Yes, like it was real GOLD. I would like to say that the story ends there, but it doesn’t. When I mentioned that we went crazy, I forgot to tell you that EVERYONE around us thought we must surely have found a REAL BARGAIN…like Wii games for a dollar, or NikeShox for $5 bucks…a crowd actually gathered around us!!!! They were all asking what we found, was there any left, and could they have some too!!! It was so funny to see the look on their faces when we held up the tubes of ChapIce…you’d have thought we went off the deep end.

But come on, beauty is in the eye of the beholder right? And there we stood, beholding 16 tubes of Oralabs ChapIce-Medicated…a treasure indeed!!! Not to mention that they were only $.60 a piece…a bargain to boot.