It's That Magical Time Of Year

Well unless you are living under a rock, then you will know that today is my birthday. If you forgot, it's okay because I didn't do my traditional month-long reminder. I realize some of you have come to rely on that. But I forgive.

My husband loves me. He speaks my language. I speak Blog. So he wrote this post for me tonight. He speaks Army. Hope you can interpret.

ATTENTION TO ORDERS:
THE SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER OF BIRTHDAYS, ACTING UPON THE RECOMMENDATION OF ANDREA’S PARENTS, HAS PLACED SPECIAL TRUST AND CONFIDENCE IN THE MATURITY, GRACE, AND BEAUTY OF ANDREA. IN VIEW OF THESE SPECIAL QUALITIES AND HER DEMONSTRATED POTENTIAL TO SERVE IN THE HIGHER AGE, ANDREA IS THEREBY PROMOTED TO THE PERMANENT AGE OF ONE YEAR OLDER THAN LAST YEAR, EFFECTIVE 30 March 2009.
That’s right, today is the day that the sparkle in Andrea’s parents' eyes some years ago became the bright ray of sunshine in my life today. Today I share my love and appreciation for her by telling her as well as all of you, how lucky and blessed I am to have her in my life. In the infamous words of those three little dudes on the cereal box, “she’s the snap that puts the crackle in my pop”.

Happy Birthday Baby


What a guy, huh? Love him. He took me out for Mexican this afternoon. My kids made supper tonight. Quesadillas (be sure to pronounce those L's).



Please note my cheese has been arranged in the shape of the letter "M" for "Mom". I know, right?


Then after supper each of my kids told me why they love me and gave me a gift. Noe gave me a new pink Nike shirt for the gym.

Keola gave me a balloon. I think he's hoping I'll give it back to him. I won't.


Mika gave me a sweet pair of black and pink Nike pants for the gym.


And my super hot husband gave me a new flash. Sweet. And a new tripod. Sweet. And a new brown skirt and orange shirt. I'm into orange right now. He reads me like a book.

I adore my kids. Mostly when they're being extra nice to me and not fighting with each other.

This guy spoils me. I love him and am so lucky to be so happily married to him. We work at it all the time, and we do pretty well. I am glad he cares enough to try. Thanks for making my birthday so fantastic baby! I LOVE YOU!!!

And thanks to all my friends and family who called to wish me well. My awesome stepkids called. (Congrats, Jordan, on winning the Jr. Jazz championships tonight!) That was great. Even my crazy blogging friends that I have met through this fantastic hobby, and who have become my friends in real life, called to share the love. Once you meet up for supper and then exchange phone numbers, you're not imaginary friends anymore. How cool is that???

In Like A Lion...

...out like an even angrier lion, possibly on Hormone Replacement Therapy.


I mean seriously. Give me a break.

Domestic Lessons Learned

This week, my very special helper learned that this product:



is much better than THIS product:


when placed in the dishwasher.

Did You Sit at the Cool Table?

You know, as odd as this sounds, white people really intrigue me. I mean, as a race in general, there are some really quirky things goin on with white folks. I've dicussed The CO-OP. Totally white. I mentioned Facebook... also very white. Don't even get me started on the white boy's obsession with Anime. That's just plain freaky. Farmers' Markets, Ugly Sweater Parties, Country Music- it's all so caucasian.

But the thing that really gets me is the vivid recollection white people have of their high school social ranking. Have you EVER met a white person who says, "I was extremely well-liked in high school"? No. You have not. EVERY white person will reference this time in their lives by saying "I wasn't popular in high school." Poll the Blacks. Poll the Hispanics. Do they ever say "I was a nerd."?


Can you explain this to me? I mean, really, when you "look back" with white people, what do you reminisce about? Depeche Mode, Izod Lacoste, and (yes, Paige) Drakkar Noir. But when you hear, oh, say, my husband look back, it's all talk about football and cruising the PCH. Salsa dancing? Quinceanera? Those fun Hispanics. Cow tipping? Ding-dong-ditch? Yeah, the white kids.

Ask the minority crew if they were popular in high school. They have no idea what you're talking about. They had fun, they did their own thing, and they have great memories of it all. Ask the caucasian persuasion, and they will name any number of possible social groups in which they were placed: nerds, band geeks, goths, druggies, barfs, etc. A rare few will have called themselves jocks, and they may admit to having indeed been popular. But they are a rare few.

Anyway. I don't get it. It seems like the Breakfast Club never really goes away.


And ironically,
do you see tha vanilla pattern here???

Spring Break... Day... Um... Shoot Me Now.

So we've been doing a lot of Dr. Seuss reading lately. Mostly because his birthday just passed. But today we had a little discussion about his art, his style, his colors, etc. It was meant to be enjoyable and informative. I'm pretty sure it was boring. I'm pretty sure because my kids said,

"Mom, this is boring." So I told them we would be making Rice Krispy Treats... a la Dr. Seuss. We dyed them the same pink, green and blue that he uses in many of his stories. We made bowls and bowls full. The only thing they had to do was sculpt theirs into some sort of Seussian creation; a tree, a house, a Lorax... whatever.

I suppose that was too much to ask.

She made a mess, and then made a ball. No thought to color structure whatsoever. Just a big blob of sticky cereal.

Oh yeah, this kid too. Same deal. I sprayed their hands with Pam so the stuff wouldn't stick, but come on. Who are we fooling? It's marshmallow. It sticks to everything. Another multi-colored lump of crunchy sugar.

At least the oldest gave it an honest effort. He tried not to mix the colors. He tried to sculpt. Heck, he even discovered that after you mess with it long enough, it really DOES stop sticking to your hands, and you really CAN sculpt something with it. So he made The Hat from The Cat in the Hat. Check it out.

See? The Cat's Hat. Seriously. If you even THINK about making a nasty comment, I will hate you forever. The kid is only ten. He sees a hat. Let the sleeping dog lie.

Tomorrow my husband gets back home, and it's the last official weekday of spring break. Thank you Moses.

Shamrocks and Shenanigans

Day Two... St. Patricks Day, of course. A nice way to break up the vacation. So far, no blood has been drawn, minimal tv has been watched, and tears have not yet been shed. I consider this a freakish anomaly, and am certain tomorrow will bring the typical craziness.

*The video produces grainy pictures. If you want to see the full splendor of it all, just click on the Family Album link on the sidebar. I'm sure you have nothing better to do with your time than peruse hundreds of pictures of my family. Well, unless you're my mom or dad. Then you'd better not have anything more important to do.

Destruction, Terror, and Mayhem

It's spring break and we aren't going anywhere this year. It's about 40 degrees out, and it's raining on and off. So we are being creative. And the camera is rolling... stay tuned to see what else the week has in store. We're gonna make it gooooood.
Now join us, while L.L. tells all. Next up: House of Pain.

iHeartFaces ... Checking it Out

So here's a fun website called iHeartFaces.

You can see all kinds of cool pictures that people have taken, and even enter little themed contests. So I'm giving it a try, for kicks. This week's theme is green. Do you like how I wrote "green" in green, just in case you were unclear about what color "green" really is?Go CELTICS!!

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

As we are prone to do, last night Skip and I were tossing around our theories on various topics. In this instance, we were thinking about the release of the new A-Team movie. Being huge A-Team fans, we have some strong feelings on the casting of these iconic, immortal roles.


"Howlin Mad" Murdock: My first suggestion was Jim Carey, but only if he takes it down a few notches. There's crazy, and then there's "please take your Ritalin, you're getting on my nerves." It's a fine line with Jimbo. Skip wants to see Woody Harrelson. I think he would do a good job, but I can't stand him. He's so trailer-trashy to me.


B.A. Baracus: In my opinion, who better than Ice Cube? No one else has the sneer mastered like he does. Skip suggests Ving Rhames. Also a worthy choice. I believe he voiced the social worker in Lilo and Stitch. And I'm pretty sure the social worker was Mr. T.



Templeton "Faceman" Peck (aka: Face): The possibilities are endless here. My first thought is Ashton Kutcher. Skip said Christian Bale (Batman). I liked his idea more.

Colonel John "Hanibal" Smith: The leader of the group. Must be chosen wisely. My first thought was Terry O'Quinn (John Locke, from LOST). Skip was thinking Tommy Lee Jones. I'm not really sold on either of those choices... which brings me to the point of this post.

WHO WOULD YOU CAST IN THESE VITAL ROLES? The A-Team was a huge part of my childhood. This cannot be taken lightly. I'm open to suggestions.

Discuss.

Gratuitous Link

SO. In my church, I teach the little three year olds. They're called Sunbeams. They have spent the past 2 years in the nursery, and in January of the year they turn 4, they move up into the Big Kids class... which we call Primary. It's a big transition. They have to sit for essentially two hours, listening to lessons and singing songs. It can be a disaster if people come unprepared or are not very good at their job.

These are some of my adorable Sunbeams.

Enter... the MASTER singing lady. Her name is Melanie. For about 20 minutes, this woman is responsible for teaching the kids some pretty difficult church songs. Make no mistake, the songs are fantastic and teach excellent gospel principles. They are, however, a bit of a mouthful for a three year old child. Our lady is one of the two best I have ever seen. And I am stingy with my praise, indeed. So this says a lot.

Some of my friends have this same responsibility in their own churches. I have been trying to summarize her activities and email them, which frankly is time consuming and cumbersome. So I came up with this brilliant idea to talk Melanie into starting a blog and posting her ideas with some photos. Apparently, Melanie is about seven months more brilliant than I am. She has a blog, and you can see all her ingenuity by clicking there yourself. It's called The Crazy Chorister

and you want to do your kids a favor and pass this link along to your own church's music chick. I have ten Sunbeams, and they pay attention to her. 'Nuff said.

Snooze Entry

So we've been a little busy. That's putting it mildly. Take a look at a few highlights:

Skip and I had a fabulous night out together. The event itself was so-so on the scale of entertainment, but anytime I can spend several hours dressed up with this guy by my side is a winning event in my book.


The annoying part is when your husband looks more eye-catching than you do. Or maybe it's just when I have to pass the camera off to someone else to take the picture, they just can't capture my beauty quite right. Yeah, that's what it is.


Mika participated in the jazz choir this year, as part of the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. I cannot believe the amount of time they put into rehearsing and performing. As you can see, he was a little wiped by the end.


Don't worry though. Nothing a little award at Scouts can't cure. Merit badges? Belt loops? Not NEARLY as cool as winning a game and getting the giant sucker for a prize. I tried to congratulate him on his several belt loops and activity badges that he earned, but all I got in return was "Mom, the wrapper on this thing is so tight I can't get it off. Can you?" Sure, honey.

Tooth Be Gone! Keola will be eight in July, and he has lost one tooth on his own. The dentist yanked out three in order to make more space in his mouth, but nothing else has really happened to warrant money under the pillow. So he was thrilled to lose this bad boy. He was even more thrilled when this morning, at 6:00, he watched me walk into his room, reach under the pillow, remove the tooth, and replace it with a buck. I forgot yesterday, I forgot today, so I just figured what the heck. He wants the money, I want the guilt gone... easy fix.

And how's this for something else: Noe is wearing my favorite childhood dress. When I was about her age, I loved it. I wanted to wear it all the time. And yes, I still have it. So what if her brothers kept calling her a pioneer! It was a nostalgic moment for me. So what if she was crying because she didn't want to be a pioneer! It was a nostalgic moment for me. She eventually got over it, and loved that she was wearing Mommy's little girl pioneer dress. It's the same one I wore when we crossed the plains.

So this is a snooze entry. Boring to most, warranting a snooze if you make it to the end.