Do you remember the time? II

Since this last week was the first day of school for Roman, this week's flashback is going to be about Shane and I and our Kindergarten experiences.

I don't remember the first day exactly. It must have been a little uneventful. I look a little cheesed that my picture was being taken though. I do remember making myself a skirt to wear for the occasion without the help of my mom.... Just imagine a 5 year old and how well they can sew. Granted, I had a little experience, but not much. Certainly no experience in tailoring or pattern making. But, I had my hands on some pink satin, a red fur heart and some fuchsia trim and I was not going to put such beauties to waste.


I was so proud and I wore this skirt to Kindergarten several times. I just remember how it was so tight, I couldn't sit on the floor.

I still have this little skirt in my memory box and it is tattered and dirty. I can't believe I went out in public in it, but wow, even I'm impressed with my skills.


A funny story about Shane's first day at school is pretty cute. Even better, we've got a picture that depicts it perfectly...

Shane had the luxury of riding the bus to school even though the school is just over a half mile away. Around these parts you have to live a mile and a half away to get a bus ride. Since they lived out in the country the bus picked him up and dropped him off at his house.


Since he was so close to the school you would think that he would be one of the last to be picked up and the first to be dropped off but for some reason it was exactly opposite. So, on the bus ride home from his first day he sat on the bus forever waiting for his stop. Not only that, but the bus kept driving right past his house to drop off someone else. By the time it was his turn to get off the bus he was MAD! He stomped all the way from the road to the house just as mad as could be. Shane's mom got a picture of his grouchy march to the house. So cute and so perfect that we have a picture to document it.

ps. sorry for the poor picture quality. #1. I don't have a scanner so I have to take pictures of the pictures #2. Shane's picture is from the 70's! and mine from the early 80's how good can they be?

It's a free ride, when you've already paid

I HATE Thanksgiving Point... there, I've said it. And please, don't come egg my house or write me nasty notes, or try to convince me otherwise. I hate it.

It's such an appealing, beautiful place but I don't think I've gone once without my level of disgust for the place increasing. I won't go into details about the many experiences. It would take me all night and it's already my bed time.

This last Tuesday was no exception.

I went because my friend Kristy told me about $2 Tuesdays in August. They have several different venues but the one that was most appealing was the farmlands. They have all sorts of farm animals that you can see and pet, and it seemed nice enough and fun so I thought, why not?! I was a little concerned about the crowd that a deal might bring, but typically a crowd doesn't bug me too much.

Most of all though, I wanted Marisa to have a pony ride. She loves horses but gets REALLY nervous up close because they are huge. A pony was a perfect little step in the right direction towards facing her fears. Right?

Anyway, we got there.... parked a mile away, waited in line to get in the place, looked at the animals from afar because there were more of people there than I would have ever imagined. There was no getting close to any of them. I wanted out! But, I had already spent the money and the time to get there and since school started the next day, it was kind of our last chance.


So after floating around for a while, looking at the tiny bunnies and waiting in line for a wagon ride only to realize it was a wagon ride or a pony ride but not both, we got in line for the ponies. It didn't take long to see that it was going to be a long wait.... Two hours to be exact.

About an hour in, Marisa started to get excited about riding a pony so our fate was sealed. We had to wait.

Now here is the irony. I don't think there was a soul there that needed a nice pony ride more than Marisa did. Seriously. All she needed was 2 minutes on a nice pony to see that even though they are big, they are usually really nice. OK, so taking her to a rodeo this summer probably didn't make that very clear to her.

So, two frustrating hours later we're going around in a circle on a pony and I'm walking next to her just to be sure she's OK and I break off to take pictures. She's doing great! I snap a picture of Roman.


Take notice. There is a little wheelbarrow full of manure in the background.... See the kid in the stripes? See his mom not paying attention? OK, I'm not sure THAT is his mom, but obviously someone dropped the ball.

Because, as I'm looking through my view finder to get a picture of Marisa all I see is her horse kick up in the air and Marisa hanging on for dear life. I ran over to get her back up on her horse (she was hanging on sideways). She wanted off so bad but even this city girl knows that you get right back on. They stopped the ride and asked if she was OK. I said she would be fine and I walked around with her for the rest of her ride and snap a shot after it's all through. Poor girl.


Anyway, the little boy tipped over the wheelbarrow, scaring Marisa's pony and nearly throwing her from his back. ARRRRGGG!

As soon as the ride was through we left that place as fast as we could get out. I was HOT! Both in temperature and mood. KFC cheered me up a little with a free meal and some root beer though. Getting home and putting the kids in their beds cheered me up even more.

p.s. Like Roman's hat? As soon as I told him we were going to ride ponies he said "gotta get my cowboy hat". Silly kid.

The First Day of School

Yesterday was Roman's first day of Kindergarten. According to him, it was the best day ever. He was super excited.


So... we're off to a good start. I was pretty excited for him too, but I get nervous. No reason really, out of habit I guess. I'm just glad that he has something to keep him busy and excited again.


From what I could pry from him, he had fun. They had cupcakes for a snack. He sat next to a boy who was in his preschool. He played with the wood chips at recess, OK weird. And he likes his teacher YEA!

But I think the highlight of the whole event was this...



Walking home with the neighbor kids. He loves these kids. They are older (5th grade and 2nd grade) But any chance he can weasel in on their play, he will. And the 5th grader is pretty nice to him and loves helping Roman so I let him bother them now and then. He wanted nothing to do with us with his "friends" around. LOL


We've got a school boy on our hands now.

Kindergarten assessments were a little funny. While I filled out paperwork the teacher took Roman to another desk and asked him questions about letters and numbers etc.

He aced the number portion She said he was better than most 1st graders when it came to numbers. Surprise to me... but ok. Then, she asked him to do letter sounds and it was funny because she would point to the word Bunny and say... What sound does this word start with. Roman would say... "that says bunny" and she would say, yes, but what sound does it start with. Roman..... "uh.... but it says bunny" hmmmm... So she says he needs to work on his letter sounds but, i know that he knows them well, he just wasn't getting the question. He reads really well, so I'm not worried about it.

The only thing that he really didn't know was rhyming. LOL. He doesn't get it. His guesses were pretty funny but nope.... he doesn't know how to rhyme. I don't know if I had ever thought of teaching him how to rhyme, but on a practical note, I don't think it's the worst thing to not understand.

My biggest worry is that he's going to be bored. Honestly, other than not being quite mature enough, he's on the younger side of the Kindergartners, I think he would thrive in a 1st grade setting. I could be wrong. But I don't think he's going to learn much in Kindergarten. Maybe he'll really seal in that rhyming business though. ;)

Yeah for school!

Ten Little Indians

Ezra is ten months old and I actually accomplished this post in within a week of the mark. :)

He is a maniac, a monkey, a puppy, a weirdo.... anything but a normal little boy. He's CRAZY!

He crawls on his hands a knees now and is faster than ever. His destination of choice is the bathroom. He loves it in there and is absolutely fascinated by the little cups that cover the bolts on the toilets. Like I said.... WEIRDO!


If you put him in Marisa's crib, he goes nuts. He hangs on the bars like a monkey and swings around, falls down and bounces up and down. He would fit in at the zoo very well.

He's much like a puppy around here too. He crawls around with his mouth open, panting like a dog, eating any food that drops on the ground and begging for a bite of your dinner. You can't leave the front door open or he will escape.

Check out the new tooth!

I HATE changing this kids diaper because he will not stay on his back for two seconds. He wiggles and squirms and kicks and claws his way away as fast as he can. I never understood the safety belts on changing tables until now.

Anyway, he's growing so fast but we're having fun with him. Even if he may send me to the nuthouse before he's through.

Do you remember the time?

I've been wanting to do some off topic random posts. I thought this would be a fun one.

I'm going to do a weekly post that has a picture and/or memory from my past. ie. "Flashback Friday" type of thing. Except I think I will do mine on Mondays since Fridays are typically hectic and I often need something to do on Sunday nights.

So for this week.... I'm going with this one, no wait, two pictures:

This is from my college days as a single crazy 19 year old. I spent the first year of college living at my parents house. IT STUNK. So one day I just got crazy and decided to move out even though I had no money and a perfectly free and totally empty home to stay in. I found space in apartment 18 of Sparks II and had one of the best summers of my life. Life was EASY and we had lots of fun. Life was so care free. Although I may not have thought as much at the time. My worries were limited to boys, clothes, coming up with rent money (thanks mom!), boys, hair, apartment checks and what I was going to have to do to get myself a man. Little did I know, I had already met my man.

Here is a picture of many of the crew I hung out with at the time..... yes friends, there is an odd duck in the mix. That's because our friend Jackie decided she needed to live at home to save $. So we got stuck with a girl named Jacquie for a while, but we drove her out soon enough. Oh, that's awful! I think we were pretty brutal. SORRY JACQUIE! But that's a whole other story. You know I still love you Jackie, it wasn't your fault. ;)


Anyway, this picture is when we were celebrating the half way mark for when two of our prancing (a.k.a. folk dancing) friends would come home from tour and we could resume our care free playing. Gotta love a good sip of sprite to liven things up. Boy, were we weird!


Ahhhh.. I love looking at old photos. I hate that I wore those overall shorts so much they got a hole in the rear. They're hideous!

Drive Me Crazy

We have this little toy monster truck. I believe it's called a "rev up" and it has been quite a popular toy around our house. It has gears so that when you push it i.e. "rev it up", it continues to go on it's own. It even has magnets so it can climb a metal door or drive on this track it came with that has a metal strip down the middle.


Anyway, the kids love it. We used to have two, but one mysteriously disappeared a while back.

This toy, however, is a source of all sorts of grief and anger for this little man.

He gets SO mad whenever he plays with it, but he won't just crawl away from it. He continues to pick it up, cry, throw it in a fit of rage, crawl to it and pick it up again. I'm guessing the anger comes from the inability to make it work the way the other kids can. He just doesn't have the skills yet, and that is just too much for him to handle.

Poor kid.

Hurts so bad

It's so fun being a mother.

Marisa was sniffling and leaking like a faucet by the time Saturday was over. No wonder she was so cranky. Sunday was no better or worse so I sent her to Nursery anyway. I know, I'm a bad mommy, but if it makes you, me or anyone else feel better, I don't care if anyone else sends their runny nose child to nursery. Throwing up or really sick? now that's a different matter.

Ezra slept horribly last night. I usually just listen from the living room waiting for him to calm down and doze back to sleep, but he just wasn't doing it. He got his first tooth the other day without me even suspecting it, but I think tooth number two is giving him grief. I finally gave in and paid him a visit. That just made him mad. Probably because I wasn't giving him what he would have preferred. Sorry kiddo, the factory is closed until 6 am. And, for future reference, will be closing indefinitely in the very near future. MEN!

After quite the show of thrashing and screaming, he finally settled down and I was able to get him back to sleep, but he still cried off and on throughout the night. I must have turned off the monitor in a half asleep state because the next thing I knew, Shane was leaving and the monitor was off. I didn't feel as bad when I turned on the monitor to hear his quiet breathing instead of blood curdling scream wondering why I'm not coming to feed him at his normal time.

We went to Del Taco for dinner on Saturday. The food there is.... not good. All except for one thing that is DELISH! Their chicken soft tacos. Well, OK, they aren't exactly gourmet or anything but worth the $1 you pay. They are even better late at night after the kids go to bed and we can eat them in our bed while we watch lame movies on THIS T.V. hey, you have to take what you get when you don't have cable.

Back to the subject. They have a slide that the kids absolutely adore. Roman would help Marisa climb the impossibly high stairs to the top, and then they would go down together. Something about the way the slide turned caused them both to scrape their elbow every time leaving behind only one layer of skin which then turns into a scab. Roman has a band aid on his elbow to keep it from stinging and this silly little band aid has been an obsession ever since. CURSE BAND-AIDS! Kids love them, but they become a problem faster than fast.

Somehow, about four days ago my eye started to hurt a little. Saturday night it started to hurt a lot. And itch.... man did it itch. If I would have had a wire brush that was small enough to reach the corner of my eye I would have been in trouble. I exercised restraint though, because while it itched, it still hurt. So I gingerly scratched and tried to sleep it away. I woke in the middle of night and I just knew my eye was the size of a softball. But I was too tired to check it out. In the morning, I saw the damage. A black eye! out of nowhere. How do you get a black eye with out at least a good story to go along with it? It was a little swollen but not very noticeable. No one even asked me what happened at church so it must not be as bad as it looks to me. Either that or they're getting suspicious of that shady man with the goatee that I keep hanging out with. ;)

Let's hope that the breakdowns end there. School starts in 9 days and I would hate for Roman to be sick for it. Lucky for him, he rarely gets sick. I love that about him. We go meet his teacher on Wednesday. Oh.... I'm so excited. Uh... I mean... he's so excited... yea!

You're so vain

You probably think this post is about you.... but it's not... And, now I have that song stuck in my head.

Despite the lack of posts on the matter, we are still working on our basement bathroom.

We finally bought a vanity in May, then it sat while we vacationed, had visitors, etc.


But now, It's in! And, we got a counter top. BEAUTIFUL, might I add. We had just planned on getting some kind of solid surface but granite was the same price so we went and found a remnant that I think looks great. It's not very "wow" like granite often is! but it's very pretty.


We are SO CLOSE to having a true and functioning bathroom! I can smell it!

Should I say that when I'm talking about a bathroom?

Anyway. Just gotta get the bead board up and the last of the painting done, a call to the plumber to finish things up and Wallah! and a little bit of good riddance.

I tell ya though, I'm going to take a big long bath in the tub and maybe do a break dance on the large tile floor, just because I can. Except I don't know how to break dance, so maybe just do some yoga or run some laps... it's a big bathroom.

Born to run

I did it, I finished the race and didn't stop once. Although I really, really, really wanted to. Not because I was too tired, but because I really could have used a potty break. I decided not to wait in the 10 minute line. I had planned to use a bathroom that I knew would be along the trail at a park and I got stung with a big fat CLOSED sign. For a while I was staking out a nice bush, like many others were doing, but I didn't have the guts so I just decided to stop looking at the bushes and run faster instead ;) I made it, in fact, I really didn't have to go, there just only so much bouncing that my poor bladder can take.

Anyway, the day started with my alarm clock whining at me at 4 am. I wish I would have known a little more about this race because if I do it again, I'm not getting up until 4:45. I was at the finish line to catch the bus up to the start by 5 am (which is when they told us to be there). I was on the second bus (out of about 20) and I stood up at that starting line FREEZING my butt off for an hour and half while the rest of the buses came in. OH it was so cold! I couldn't feel my feet for the first 3 miles and I couldn't feel my hands until about 2 hours after coming home and taking a nice long shower.

I saw a few people I knew there, and recognized a lot of people from my high school running days.

What a fun race! It was almost all down hill, but not so bad that it really bothered me during the race. Today is a different story though. My legs, hips and knees are ANGRY!!!

It was interesting to people watch while running. There was a forest gump lookalike there, not the clean cut polyester slack kind, the running with a huge beard and a long gnarled ponytail and a shirt that looked like he had been running for months in it without a washing kind. There were lots of people I wouldn't imagine as runners who actually did quite well. So when people tell me they can't run I think.... anyone can run. I think it's more a mind thing than anything.

Anywho, So, my official time was 2:03:30. I did a lot better than I expected. And, at the end I felt like I could have gone faster, I just really didn't want to hit the wall. Having never raced that far, it was hard to know what to expect.

I never felt like I was going to die. I think the hardest part was doing a switch back for about a mile where you see all the people who are going faster than you going the other way, and they are that much closer to the end than you. But I got over it.

I'm so glad I did it.

It was hard running religiously at night when there are other things to be done, but i do hope to keep it up to some extent, even if it is just a little on the treadmill a few times a week. It's nice to be relatively athletic again.

I wish that doing the chores around this place gave me the same sense of accomplishment. Somehow though, it just doesn't.

I take it back

You know how I said that I could take my kids shopping with me and it wasn't even scary? well, I probably won't be taking my kids to JoAnns again.

Today, I had a list of items I needed and it was to be a quick in and out trip but I hit a snag. The pattern that I had looked up online was no where to be found. Commence meltdown. As I frantically searched through the pattern books looking for a suitable alternative. Roman ran through isles bumping into displays, blocking other customers and heaven knows what else. Marisa whined about her book not staying open, her chair being a 1/4 of an inch too far away from it's proper place and anything else she could find wrong with the situation. Ezra was attempting death defying cart escape stunts while trying to reach said books in order to destroy and eat them I'm sure.

I gave up. No pattern. On to the zippers.... SIGH, no zippers that are the right size. On to the thread. While finding the best option for thread, I had to find and replace about 100 spools of thread that had been misplaced by Roman and Marisa's little fingers. Seriously, why don't they make those displays taller? Not only are they fascinating and a magnet for these little ones, you have to practically sit down just to see the different colors.

Thread. Check. On to the pattern tracing material. Which is also unspeakably low. Another lady also bending over to see her options next to me. The last straw. Roman blurts out "Mom, Look at that HUGE butt!"

Kill me now! before he could embarrass me anymore we suddenly had an interest in looking at yarn.... on the other side of the store, in a corner.

A little time passed, I think it's safe to resume our shopping trip, so I get in line to get my fabric cut when behind me steps up the lovely lady who Roman..... um..... noticed.

She was so sweet. She entertained my unruly children by pointing out the colors on her sparkly shirt, and asking Roman about Kindergarten until I could get my fabric cut.

Proceed to the checkout. After a million No's referring to the candy, which I think must be made out gold for the price, that is so conveniently placed at the little one's eye level we made it out..... alive..... barely. I think I'm going to add JoAnns to my list of places I save for after bedtime.

We came home and had a nap.... well, at least Ezra did. I retreated to my "safety zone" aka computer to document my near death experience. LOL

Ready to Run

OK, not really..... Nope, not ready at all. But, ready or not, the race is in one measly day. No more training, no more squeezing runs out of the last of the sunlight for the day trying to go just one more mile than last time. Nope, now I just gotta convince myself that I can run that far. 13 point something miles. I never actually made it past 8.5 miles in my training. That went OK though, I'm convinced I could have kept running after that so sure.... why not? ;) I've run that far before....12 years ago, but still.

I will let you know if I live or die, run or walk.... or maybe crawl. Whatever it takes though. I'm going to finish.

It's a downhill race, which will be great until about mile 7 when I would give anything to use some different muscles.

oh my... what have I gotten myself into?

But still, it feels great to run and not want to die because I'm so out of shape. My legs are all shapely and young looking again. Wish I could say the same for my midsection but running just hasn't done much in that area. I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet and **GASP** do crunches or something. Yes, I said crunches (a four letter words as far as I'm concerned) Now THAT would be something to brag about, not this silly race.

I will let you know how it goes. I will call it a success if I make it in less than 2.5 hours. AND, if I manage to drag myself out of bed at 4 a.m. to get to the silly thing.

Ninety Nine Red balloons go by

Ezra turned nine months old over a week ago. Where does the time go? I feel like I do nothing important, get nothing accomplished, have a growing to do list, and yet am usually busy doing something. I think I'm really looking forward to having more structure in our lives when school starts. It's only one kid gone but a schedule might just be the ticket to accomplishing some very neglected chores. Well, that and getting my butt from behind this gosh darn computer.

I've been looking forward to kindergarten for two years now. Luckily, so has Roman. I love the kid, but he's so social, he drives me nuts. I can't even be in the same room when he plays the Wii because he will still talk my ear off. If he doesn't have anything interesting to say. He just says a long string of words that make no sense. It's maddening sometimes! I'm just hoping he doesn't get into trouble for talking in class.

Anyway, back to the subject.

Ezra is growing so fast. He is still army crawling. He knows how to crawl on his hands and knees, but hasn't given it much attention because he is lightning fast on his belly. He's like a snake.


He's started pulling himself up and is so proud to be up on his feet like the rest of us. I would say that he might be an early walker, but I would probably be wrong. Neither Roman nor Marisa were all that speedy in that department.


The kid doesn't hold still, which makes church interesting to say the least. And, he goes from one trouble to the next. (the bathroom, the fan, lamp cord, phone cord, blinds, the test button on the CO detector, then back to the bathroom)


He can devour cheerios like a vacuum. In fact, he sucks up anything on the floor like a vacuum too. Needless to say, I've seen a few interesting things that have found their way through him and into his diaper. SIGH. I'm constantly digging things from his cheeks. Which reminds me, we need to go buy Marisa some neon colored hair elastics because the pastel ones blend right into the carpet and can really only be seen if you are really close, like Ezra is.

He's getting quite a cute personality and pulls some cute faces. I try to capture them with my camera but I'm telling you, the kid is FAST and he doesn't hold still. The other day he started bopping to some music. Melt my heart! it was so cute.


Anyway, today was his 9 month check up, here are his stats:

29 inches long which is 75%

20 lbs 13 oz which is 60%

head is 46 1/2 cm which is 80% (our only kid to go past the 50th percentile in this category)

He's pretty much your typical 9 month old I guess. Heaps of trouble :) But really, such a good baby.