The Toilet Bowl

The football season is officially over. The league ended by having a playoff for the best teams. Corbin's team played well, but not good enough to get into the playoffs (they won 4 lost 4). Because the boys have loved it so much and because the coaches are such die hards, they decided to arrange their own playoff among the teams who didn't make it to the official one. Our playoff was lovingly christened THE TOILET BOWL. The boys played amazingly, and came in second. I have to say, I was a little disappointed we didn't win. Instead of a trophy, they winners got a real toilet with vinyl lettering that read "Toilet Bowl Champions 2008". Can you imagine? A real toilet. That's priceless! Maybe next year....

Grrrrrrrrrr-iffan!

This is my sweet 4.5 pound yorkie Griffan. Scott and the kids gave him to me for Mother's Day a year and a half ago. He is the kindest, easiest going dog ever. Over the summer he was hit by a car on Center Street. He had a concussion and needed stitches, but he survived....... YEAH!!!!!! Mostly, I am just posting this because I really liked how the photo turned out. Isn't he cute?

Hee Haw

My mom took took the kids to Hee Haw farms
last Saturday. They had so much fun in the corn maze and kissing pigs. Yup, that's right. I said KISSING PIGS. Apparently, they were all chosen (in their individual age brackets) to compete against other kids chasing, catching and kissing pigs. The beauty of this story is: once Averie caught her pig and was holding it, trying to turn it around for smooches, it responded by emptying it's bowels all down her front. I guess as a natural defense mechanism,it works well, because she dropped that pooping pig as fast as she could and it ran happily to safety. Averie, on the other hand, was stuck wearing pig pooped on pants for the rest of the day. On a happier note, Brock won his division, Corbin did well in his, and Ave was given a free baby pumpkin to make up for the naughty porker.

I Love You WildCat!

Averie's orthodontist, Dr. Swenson, rented out
three theatres opening night for High School
Musical Three. He held a contest for his patients to determine who would go, and HURRAY! HURRAY! Averie won two tickets. She really wanted to invite her friend Lauren, but I put
my parental foot down, and made her take me instead (besides, Lauren couldn't drive her to and from the theatre). We went early and had dinner at Thanksgiving Point before. We had great seats, and so much fun making fun of the movie together. Secretly we bothed liked it, but it was cheesey enough that we wouldn't have been able to look at ourselves in the morning if we didn't throw out a few comments here and there. All in all, it was a perfect girls night out. Sorry boys.......

I'm a Genius!!!

Yesterday my mom brought over the board game 1313 Dead End Drive. The kids and I played it for hours with her. In this game, you can move any of the "people" in an effort to keep your "people" a secret. Every time someone would start moving any of Brock's pieces, he would try (with no success) to control his facial ticks, bust out laughing, and then cover his mouth while he laughed, as if that would keep us from noticing, and realizing exactly who he was. Finally, we asked him what he was laughing at. He looked at us, and said "I am a genius! You guys have no idea who I am." What a funny kid. He truly thought he was pulling one over on us. We had no choice but to agree with him. Yes Brock, you ARE a genius!!!

(Almost) Teenage Angst

Okay, so I am a blog-slacker. It just seems that my life is not always interesting enough to write about.
Averie has been SOOO moody lately. The other day, she was in rare form (it was bad enough that my mom overheard her while talking with Corbin on the phone, and tattled on her. If you know my mom at all, you will realized this is COMPLETELY out of character for her.). Anyway, Ave already had plans to go to the movies with her friend, and I was burnt out from spending the day in my salon, so I let her go, with the understanding that we would address her issues when she got home. When she got back, Scott and I invited her into our bedroom for a little come to Jesus meeting. Apparently, she didn't appreciate it, because when she was excused, she stormed off to her room, slammed the door, and then made all these signs to let us know EXACTLY how she was feeling.

Notice the cute bums on the top sign

When I walked down her hall to tell her goodnight, I found her door closed, covered in these signs. They said things like, NO RULES ALLOWED, NO BOYS, PARENTS GO AWAY, and ENTER AND DIE. She had also drawn pictures of pirate skulls and what I can only guess were light bulbs, but they just looked like fat people mooning me while they pulled up their pants. I know I should have taken her anger seriously, and been super offended by her nasty signs, but I couldn't stop laughing. Honestly, the effort it took to make all of those signs, and the fact that her mean and imposing light bulbs were actually bums... it was just too dang funny. Thank you Averie- for being so entertaining when you are angry.

In The Immortal Words Of Junie B. Jones, "I Have Tension In Me!"

Translation (for those who don't understand seven year old writing):

10-6-08

Dear Mom and Dad, I am having a hard time finding friends at school but I want you to know that I love you Mom and Dad. Love Brock

Usually I love SEP's (snazzy new way of saying parent teacher conferences). I go, the teachers rave on and on about how great my kids are, and I leave thinking I must be the best mom in the world to have raised such amazing little people. Imagine my surprise, when I went yesterday and was handed this letter from my son. Mrs. Earl (Jeanie) looked across the table at me and Scott, told us that Brock was doing phenomenally academically, and then said "he wrote you a letter, but it broke my heart when I read it." I'm sure that was intended to give me some kind of warning about what I was about to read (since when I asked her earlier that day at the book fair if she was going to tell me anything bad when we met for SEP she conveniently left that warning out and said it would all be great). Honestly, it was all I could do to keep myself composed and not start crying. How can my baby be having such a hard time and I had no idea?!? This is my kid who still cuddles with me and talks with me about everything. How did this not come up in our conversations? His teachers (there are two who split the day down the middle) both said they were baffled by his feelings. They told me he was friendly and outgoing in class and that the kids seemed to like him a lot. He always has a partner when they split off into groups, and they thought that he had tons of friends. I am constantly at his school, volunteering or subbing and I have always seen him with friends and felt he was well liked. He doesn't have a bunch of kids over to play, but that is entirely my fault. We are always so busy running from practices and games and scouts and whatever other project I have going on, that friends (for all of my kids) usually hits the bottom of the list of priorities. I know that makes me a loser mom, but truly, they ARE with their friends at most of the activities I just mentioned. Perhaps Brock was just having a bad day on Monday, but I am still devastated that he was hurting enough he wrote me a letter about it. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix this for him. I need suggestions. Please comment (and be gentle, I am already a mess over this) and give me advice. Thank you friends and family for all of your love and support. It means so much to me. Looking forward to hearing from you....

The Sport of Champions

My sweet Corbin has been playing tackle football this fall. I have to say, that originally I was opposed to this. Corbin is so tender-hearted that I thought it would make him feel badly to knock people to the ground. Not to mention, the fact that they have to practice 6 days a week, 2 hours a day. He has LOVED it. Corbin is one of three X men on his team. That means he is too big to carry the ball and have the game be fair (the official max weight is 95 lbs.). He plays nose gaurd, left gaurd and sometimes center. He is amazing to watch. He works hard, and plays great. I am not just saying that because I am his mom. His coach usually has him play the majority of the game, and he told me that he gave Corbin the offensive position he reserves for his best lineman... (maybe he tells all the moms that.) If I had known how good football would be for his self esteem, I would have put him in years ago )when he first started begging) He stands up for himself more, he's made 26 new friends, he is more confident in himself and his abilities, and he looks great! They work so hard at practice that he lost over ten pounds and developed muscles we didn't know he had. This has been such a good thing for him. I couldn't be more proud of him. I love you Corbin!

Party Animals!!!

For Scott's 35th birthday I decided to throw him a party. True to my form, I wanted to invite anyone and everyone that we know. You know, it isn't really a party unless there are more people than you can count in attendance.... Scott vetoed that in a BIG way. I narrowed my list down to something like fifteen families. Again, he put his massive foot down, and we ended up with "the short list". It seems that Scottie wanted a smaller, more intimate gathering of his closest friends. FINE!!! It was his birthday, so I gave him what he wanted. I invited only the closest of the close friends, which included the Wellman's, the Melling's, the Munoz's, the Robbin's, the Hansen's, the Luke's and the Peterson's. Let it be known now that the Hansen's and the Robbin's are officially dorks who didn't show up. Monique didn't want to come minus her hubby, and the Hansen's couldn't seem to empty their house of the spare kids hanging out there. The rest of us had an AMAZING time!!! The kids (assisted by Brittany Peterson -THANKS BRITT) decorated the way down to the creek and the creek itself. We started a bonfire and bought tons of food. We BBQed hot dogs and hamburgers. Roasted marshmallows, ate cake and ice cream, and played a rousing (unplanned) game of where in the heck are the golf cart keys. It was a FANTASTIK night. Thank you to everyone who came and helped to make it GREAT!!! And a great big thank you to all of our friends - long list, short list, and everyone in between. We love you all. Thanks for making our lives a little more fun!

Is This Really How They Dress In Jr. High?

So the other day, Averie came into my bathroom to do her hair for school, and this is how she was dressed. I guess I should have taken a picture of her standing so it would show the full effect. She has on her Ernie shirt (yes, Ernie, as in Seasame Street), yellow yoga sweats pulled up to her knees, stripped socks, and Elmo slippers on. If I had never been to the Jr. High to see that, indeed the girls do occassionally dress this way, I might have tried to convince her to change. Fortunately for her, I have been, and I have seen how it is there. I know it is super cool to wear your slippers instead of real shoes. All things considered, I think she looked fantastik! I love you Ave- and I love that you know who you are and that you are confident in yourself!