And the Results Are In!

Zachary and the other third graders at his school held their Potato Olympics today.  Our Potato Shawn did an excellent job in the many games held.  Here is Zachary's Potato Olympics Record Book:

And the results of the games are:

Potato Shawn won a bronze medal, 3 silvers, and a GOLD medal in the Luge!

Hooray for Potato Shawn! 

I wish I could have been ther to see him in action.  I'd say something in French that my mother always (and I do mean always) said to me when I didn't get my way, but I don't know how to spell it.  It means "Such is Life."  It just sounds so much better in French.

The Flying Potato!

Friday, my third grader is having a potato olympics with the other third graders.  Due to Kaleb's chicken pox, I can no longer go and take pictures of the events.  Zach will have to fill me in on all the details when he gets home.  He brought home a note the other day that said we needed to decorate a potato to resemble our child's favorite olympian.  Zach chose Shawn White aka "The Flying Tomato".  Why was I not surprised?  I told him after making his valentines box, I was a little tired of crafts and that he needed to have his dad help him.  I couldn't find my hot glue gun, so I got out the trusty glue dots.  I didn't really think they would stick to a potato.  He got out my yarn and made some orange hair for his potato, and drew some eyes and a cheesy grin on some paper and cut them out.  Here are the results:

Can't you just see the resemblence?  Eh, eh?  It's uncanny.  I told him he needed more hair, but he said, "This is how much I want to do!"  So there it is.  The potato olympics coming Friday, February 26, 2010 to a humble elementary school somewhere in the United States of America.  God bless the USA!

Do us proud Potato Shawn.  Do us proud.

"A Pox? Oh, How Delightful - A Pox!"

Chicken to be specific.  Kaleb came home from church yesterday, and as usual, I said (well, more like sang really loudly opera style in my great tenor voice), "It's time to change our clothes!"  I sang this over and over getting higher and higher.  I'm such a rock star.  Well, also as usual, Kaleb decided to take his time so an hour later, he comes out of his room, lifts up his shirt and says, "Mom!  What is this!?"  He had little red dots reminicent of chicken pox all over his tummy.  He didn't have those (as far as I knew) when he got dressed that morning.  So I thought, well, he needs his kindergarden shots any way, so I'd better just check it out.  Also, he's had the chicken pox before, so it could have been something else.  I called the doctor this morning, and thank goodness for smalltownness that we live in.  There was an appointment this afternoon.  The doctor told me getting mulitple outbreaks of the chicken pox can run in the family.  I only had them once, though.  She told me one family, the mom had them twice as a child, and her son, got vacinated (so has Kaleb), and still got them three times.  I suppose it could be worse.  It always could be worse.  He got out of getting his shots this time.  That's something he was happy about.  Poor guy, though.  He had a birthday party at lunchtime that he couldn't go to because of his red spots.  I took the boy over his present later, so Kaleb got a goody sack, but it's not the same.  When I told him he couldn't go to the party he got really sad, and hid under a chair.  His dad took the day off so I could go to my eye appointment (still only a one car family), so when I got home, Kurtis was hugging his little guy trying to make him feel better.  Other than that, you wouldn't know he had anything wrong with him.  No fever.  Nothing.  He still wants to run around and play the Playstation.  He's just itchy.

The Horizon T101

I've been doing really well on one of my New Year's resolutions (remember: flossing and loose 30 pounds by my birthday?).  I bet you can easily guess which one was easier for me to accomplish.  Yeah, flossing.  I'm really good at flossing every night before bed.  I can tell when I've skipped a day, too.  Yuck.  Anyway, to help myself with my other goal, I got a treadmill.  It came yesterday.  I was very excited.  I love my husband, but when we have to put things together, he gets frustrated easily, and becomes argumentative.  I don't like it because then I get all cranky.  It took us an hour and a half to heave it up our stairs, into the bedroom, and put it together.  Not too bad.  I could have done without his biting tone of voice, though.  I'm not an idiot and he knows it.  So anyway, after we get it put together, and lubricated, he decides to hog it.  It's my freaking treadmill that I have been waiting at least eight freaking years for!  The time we went to get ge me one like six years ago, or so, he saw a recumbant bike, and said, "I would rather bike than run."  So I said, "Fine, we can't get both, though."  And that's the way our marriage has gone for most of the time.  But in reality, guess who actually used the recumbant bike more than the man who wanted it in the first place.  Yep.  So he's all on the treadmill trying it out, and says, "I like this!"  Duh.  When am I ever wrong?  Um, never. I knew he would like it just fine.  So I sit on the bed, and after a minute, he looks at me and says, "Do you feel like I am hogging your treatmill?"  "Yes," I reply forlornly.  So he gets off, and I get to use it for a bit.  I love it.  Until I get off it.  Then I feel like I am going to fall over for a minute or two.  It's weird.  I have to build up to actually running on it, though.  I'm a little freaked out by it.  It's taking some adjusting to.  I can do it.  This is just something I've never done before.  I even let Kaleb use it this morning for about seven minutes.  He's always telling me his legs hurt.  I'm just assuming it's growing pains, but he says it everyday, so hopefully working them out a little bit (on a very low setting) will help.  He likes it.  He needs to go outside more, but  it's not always gonna happen.  Like today because it's snowing.  It's time for the sunny one minute and snowing the next weather here!  Yay! (That was a sarcastic yay, just incase you couldn't hear it.)

Here's Something I Never Thought I Would Say:

"Unless you are in a movie where you have to drool on someone, you are not allowed to drool on people!"
Apparently Zachary was getting a little too into his "role-playing" game this morning.  The good news is, they go back to school tomorrow!  Happy!  Happy!

Just Showing You My Awesomeness a Little Bit

It's my kids' Valentine party at school today.  Last week, his teacher sent home a note saying we needed to bring his own box for their valentines.  I thought, "What?!"  That's half the fun of Valentine's Day!  Making your valentines box with your classmates so your parents don't have to do any work.  Don't teachers make us do enough?  So after reconciling this fact in my heart, we went to orientaltrading.com and Zach said he wanted this:

To which I immediately replied, "Oh, heck yeah!"  I love frogs.  Any way, the price was $9.99 for 12, and try as I could to tell myself it was totally worth it, I couldn't.  Because there's just no way I would ever need 12 of them.  I only have two kids in school, so then I would have ten more just lying around taking up more space.  He's so cute, though.  So Zach and I went to the craft store Saturday, got some green, orange, and black craft foam paper stuff (I don't really know what it's called), some googley eyes (which I lost, and had to go buy another pair), and foam letters with sticky backs.  Then I took the shoe box from his new shoes, and wa-la!

I know, I'm awesome, right!  When we got to the craft store, Zach informed me that he wanted his to be a firebelly toad, like George, so that's why his tummy is orange, and my hear punch wouldn't punch through the foam (it was too thick to fit in the slot), so I just used black paper instead.  The craft store didn't have green wrapping paper either, so I bought that wrapping paper instead.  Not very froggy, but it was spots, and firebelly toads have lots of spots.  Pretty crafty of me, eh?  Oh yeah, and I also made these for my primary class to give them a Valentine's Day treat on Sunday!

Pretty stinking cute aren't they?  They're love bugs with Skittles inside!  I have 9 boys in my primary class, so I am giving the remaining 3 to my boys.  Shhh!  It's a surprise.  They think I made all of them for my primary class because I said, "These are for my boys."  I was including them in that sentence, but they don't know that.  They were disappointed at the thought, but I love surprises, so he he he.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!

I Just Want To Be Loved For Who I Am (and My Mad Acting Skillz)!

Sometimes I wonder why I even signed up to be on facebook in the first place.  Oh, yeah.  Because I have friends, and family that I don't get to see or talk to otherwise (yes, it's very sad).  But seriously sometimes facebook can be a dangerous place.  My ten-year-old nephew recently signed up to be on facebook.  He's only ten, but I feel it's okay for him to be my "friend" because he is my nephew.  What is not okay, is when his friends look and see how freaking awesome my Farmville farm is, and decide they need to be my "friend" too.  That just seems completely inappropriate.  I have never even met this kid.  I have declined his friend request, but he keeps asking me, and sending me "bottled messages" (my facebook page is in Pirate English), telling me he's a fan of my farm, and wants to be my friend.  I don't think I will ever be accepting this "friend" request anytime soon, but do you think the kid could get the hint?  My farm isn't that great, people.  It isn't even real for crying out loud!  I haven't mastered the art of growing strawberries in real life, where it actually matters.  I have a tendency to kill the things I plant.  Kurtis thinks I should tell the child he can be my friend if his parents say it's okay.  I've never met his parents.  Why would they say it's okay?  All this because I let my kids make facebook pages so they could play Farmville?  It's just a game people.  It's just a time wasting game.  I don't want ten-year-old "friends" who only love me for my farm.

Croak, Croak!

I have a cold.  It really sucks.  Yesterday, I couldn't talk.  Zach was running around playing in the street, and I couldn't scream at him to get out of the road.  Seriously.  What eight and a half year-old doesn't know you don't play in the street?  I had to have Riley do it.  He's seven.  I feel like the best mom ever.  Today, my voice is back, it's just really, really awful sounding.  My friend came over to give Kaleb a birthday party invitation for her son, and she noticed.  My ears are all plugged up and I can't hear as well.  My children know this and seem to find ways to take advantage of it.  I am on the mend.  Saturday, I felt it coming on.  By bedtime, I knew I wasn't well, but coulldn't sleep.  Sunday, I stayed home from church and tried to sleep, but Kaleb stayed home with me so that didn't really happen.  I was weak and tired and coughing and my throat hurt.  Yesterday, I was fine for most of the day until after Kate left.  Then my voice just died.  It said, "You have to shut up!"  It's not like I really talk all that much during the day.  I mean, the only person I have to talk to is a five-year-old, and all he wants to do is play video games.  Which because I was sick, I did let him do.  Usually, it's a half hour limit.  My kids are addicted.  They need to figure out how to use their imaginations.  So today, I can talk, I just sound like an old man who smoked for 50 years.  Which is good that I can talk because my mom came by today and gave us some old walkie talkies, and I just found Zach up in the tree in our front yard instead of doing his homework.  I should have taken a picture.  It would have been awsome with this post, but I was too mad.  They were breaking the rules, again.

I Would Have Loved to Have a Little Girl

So I have been watching the cutest little girl for the last week and a half, and will be for another week and a half for my friend while she helps with a merger at work.  I thought that having such a cute little two-year-old would make me want to have a baby and try for a girl.  I was a little worried.  I've given away all my baby stuff, and have moved on from that stage in life.  Sometimes, though, I wonder if we had tried again, would we have been blessed with a girl.  But in all honesty, I am totally done having children.  I love babies.  They are so sweet and cute, and just eat, sleep, cry, poop.  But I don't have to change diapers any more, and I am really quite fine with that.  Kaleb has been potty trained for awhile now, and the one time I had to change Kate's poopy diaper (she's not here all day, so I usually only have to change her twice, and usually, she's not poopy), I realised something had changed.  I didn't mind changing her, but I did mind the smell.  I had to get out the air freshener!  When I had babies and was changing diapers I never did that.  I guess we figured what was the point, right?  Yeah.  So even though my youngest is five, I still get asked if I want more.  Let me just clear this little question up for you right here and now.  Then you don't have to ask me any akward questions.  I'm done having kids.  I have three boys.  The last time I had a baby, I wanted to kill myself.  Literally.  I am fine now.  Loosing weight helped, but I am not going to have a big family like my mother.  During my pregnancies with Riley and Kaleb, my placenta grew old prematurely and they had to be monitored.  My doctor asked if I wanted more children at my six week check up.  I told her I felt like I was done.  She told me that was a good thing, and that I probably shouldn't have any more.  So that's that.  No more kids.  I am easily stressed out, oh, and I am going to kindergarden for the 4th time in my life starting next year.  Yeah.  This is the part they don't tell you when you get pregnant.  They are all way too excited for the little baby.  Babies don't stay babies.  They grow up to be mouthy little children who go to school, and bring home homwork, that you get to do with them.  So please don't ask me any more.  If I had wanted more kids, I would have had them by now.  Have a great day!  Love your guts!