2013 Memories

Just like in the other memories posts, this is Future Ticia 2023 combining and organizing posts to make a better blog.

Beware the Terrible Laundry Disease! March 24

It all started Friday March 15.  Technically it was Saturday, March 16, at 4 am.

 Batman came downstairs to report Superman had thrown up on both of their beds.  First Superman threw up on his bed, so Batman let his brother sleep in the same bed as him, only to be thrown up on.

 We collected the sick child and put him in the bath to get cleaned off.  Then the LAUNDRY DISEASE struck again, and we had several towels to clean up.

 For the next several hours Superman would alternate between being sick and taking baths.  I think he took a months worth of baths that night/morning, all because of the LAUNDRY DISEASE!

 He was very sick for 2 days, and produced 5 loads of laundry.  Maybe more, I lost count after the first 4 loads.  And these aren’t just the normal loads, no they’re the 3 hour sanitize loads.

 Then Sunday afternoon Batman got sick.   That night he managed to get every single sheet that fit MY bed dirty, another 3 loads of laundry.  We scrounged up a flat sheet, covered it with towels, and then I had 2 more loads of laundry because of the TERRIBLE LAUNDRY DISEASE, and another night of no sleep.

 Batman was sick all of Monday, of course not sick enough to remember it half the time, instead he kept trying to poke his brother.  So, I played referee to two boys who were sick enough not to be able to do anything, but not so sick that they didn’t have energy.

 Then the TERRIBLE LAUNDRY DISEASE struck again…………  And more cruely than before, it hit the parents, DUN DUN DUUUNNNNNNN………….

 Jeff and I spent a miserable day or so.  There are many thanks to my Mom who took the kids out of the house so Jeff and I could sleep.  She took one for the team, and caught a mild version of it herself.  Apparently, you’re more prone to get it if you spend 3 days with a sick child draped on you, than a not sick child playing at your house.

 So, all of this to say, we did nothing this week.

 We watched movies on Netflix and learned about animals that way, but it was nothing impressive.  I commented and pinned almost everyone, and I could have sworn I’d saved some to share in a post, but I opened it up Saturday morning afternoon, and there was nothing.  Like my computer ate it.

 So, I’m gonna play hooky from everything today.  It’s been that kind of week, and to some extent two weeks.  Hopefully, things will look better after a day spent pretending to be in a fictional version of the Renaissance populated with fairies.

 And being lazy, I’m just gonna hit publish, so I don’t have to worry about this tomorrow night, ARGH morning.

Birthday kidnapping: Mission Spoil Your Wife, July sometime

There are times I would defy anyone else to say they have a better husband.  While I was out of town visiting my brother, Jeff got together with my best friends here in town and planned my birthday surprise.  It started with my getting a text from Tara “What size dress do you wear?  I’m looking at bridesmaid dresses.” 

On my actual birthday I went out with Jeff and the kiddos.  They had very carefully bought and wrapped my present.  Complete with about 20 cards they’d stamped.  I’d pull each one out, Jeff would take a picture, and the kids would explain what each one was.  “Mommy, this one is the people at your wedding.” {stamps of monsters, what is he saying?}

Of course, this is the mess they left from the wrapping, which they had to go in and clean up later that day.  Everything always seems to end up wrapped in Christmas paper, probably because that one roll has a dog that looks like ours.

Well, the Saturday after my birthday Jeff said, “I have errands to run, and I was thinking we could stop and get lunch somewhere, but first let’s go by Barnes and Noble.” Stop by the bookstore, yes please.

I had happily collected a stack of X-Men and Batman graphic novels when my friend Amanda comes in, says “I have something to show you,” and pulls me out to her car (I did not have my camera at the time, so this is obviously a much later picture).

I felt rather like the girl from Terminator, having the guy appear saying, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Then we went and got massages together and just happily chattered for an hour or two.  As we came out Tara was there.

“Put this on,” and she gave me a new fancy dress.  Then I was whisked off to Ulta for make-up.  We spent an hour or so there, and they made me all fancy.  Then Tami joined us.

I didn’t have my camera, or know to take pictures with my phone, so no pictures of Tami or getting my hair done.  Tara has all of those photos, so this is Princess, Tara, and I at dinner that night.

Then we headed back to the house where I was beset by wandering monsters.  Where after putting on jewelry I was swept off to dinner with all of my friends (minus Tami who had to attend her niece’s birthday party).

Where many photos were taken, because how often is everyone all dressed so fancy?

There was soooooo much food, and it was a lot of fun to have almost all of my friends together and we just talked and had so much fun.  It’s pretty much the perfect birthday celebration.

All in all, I would have to say Jeff’s “Operation Spoil Ticia on her birthday” mission was an overwhelming success.

And that is the story of my birthday celebration.  It can’t get much better than that.

Balloon bomb!

I found this in my draft folder, and had to dig it out.  It cracked me up when it happened, and it still cracks me up now.

Last summer the church office my Mom works at was “balloon bombed,” that’s the best description I can give for it.  A bunch of teens got together and filled the youth pastor’s office and the intern’s office all the way with balloons.  When they opened the door the rest of the church office was filled to overflowing.

I got a desperate email from my Mom asking me to come pick up balloons and take them away.  So, I headed up there with two giant trash bags to do my share with the monstrous balloon bomb.

The boys were off somewhere, so Princess thought this was a great opportunity to bury herself in balloons.  There were several times I only knew she was in there because of the happy squeals.

So sometime, I’m planning on blowing up insanely large numbers of balloons and surprising the kids.  I think it’ll make their day.

The first week of Advent

(Future Ticia 2025 realizes I accidentally deleted the pictures from this part)

I feel kind of like I’m starting the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

On the first week of Advent the Time Lords gave to me……  (Oh my friend Amanda would be so proud of me for a Doctor Who reference, even if I don’t watch it, it’s one of the few sci-fi series I don’t really watch, more because Jeff has zero interest than anything else).

They gave me so much to do and so little time, and I do not have the ability to time travel, if I did can you imagine how cool history lessons would be?  “Okay kids we’re off to see Cleopatra seduce Caesar today!”  Bwa ha ha ha…..

But to back up, for Thanksgiving we headed up to Dallas because Tara’s wedding was only a few days later.  My brother joined us at Jeff’s parents house. We celebrated Princess’ and Jeff’s birthdays again with a ridiculously chocolatey cake.  Then we gave my brother a piece of pie with candles in it because his birthday was on Thanksgiving this year.  Princess got a kick out of feeding her cousin food.  The boys enjoyed wrestling with Uncle Sean, and were quite amazed to find some ice while we went on a walk with their granddad.

Then came the wedding of awesomeness, and so much to do on Saturday.  A 7 hour drive back on Sunday morning, after helping take down the wedding decorations and a night of very little sleep.  Too much emotion, and all that.

SCHOOL TYPE STUFF THIS WEEK

Superman is plowing through All About Reading 3 {affiliate link}, and pretty much masters every lesson as soon as he reaches it.  He always loves the lessons that have games most, and so this most recent lesson (20?) had him happy as a clam because there was a race car and it was very game like.

Here’s an example of Superman’s reading.  His voices as he reads make me so happy.  I’m including it more because I’m a proud Mom than for any real other reason.

We are continuing through Saxon Math, but it’s hit that point where it’s a lot of things they don’t know, and they are not used to the spiral approach, so they are getting confused by constantly having something new, and something being dropped before they’ve completely mastered it.  I’m still trying to decide if I like Saxon or not.

The rest of our lessons were rather perfunctory.  We achieved Science, but it was more of a get through it type of lesson, than enjoyable and the usual hands on stuff.  I’m feeling very behind and was just ready to be done with the digestive system. Well that, and it was the part of the digestive system dealing with elimination, GROSS. (This picture is completely unrelated, I just like it of Batman).

Hopefully today (as in after this post goes live), we’ll finish our history for the week.

A Horrible Mishmash of Things September 6, 2013

And rather than be a good blogger and write it all out in separate posts so it’s not confusing, instead I’m clumping it all together, because I spent the week hanging out with my family since Jeff was off rather than on the computer.

I am not sorry.

We practiced our spelling for the week using stair step writing, which the kids didn’t get at first, but then thought was fun.  I need to dig up my file of spelling ideas, but so far they’re enjoying what I’ve remembered.

Saxon Math is a spiral math so it introduces concepts in drips and drabs, I’m still getting used to this, but we took some time to learn about fractions, and it really helped my tactile learners to cut out the papers into the different fractions.  We have a lesson coming up this week for learning about eighths……..  That should be fun to cut out all of those pieces.  Part of me wants to save these for them to refer back to, but the other part knows they don’t need another notebook to keep track of especially since we probably won’t use it all that often.  Maybe I’ll make a Master Math Notebook……..  I don’t know.

This is what math looks like in our house.  Each of the kids works on their math at their desk, they have math blocks to use, or other things to add in.  As they need help I walk to their desks and help them.  I also encourage them to use the tools we have, a big calendar (more on that September 13), math blocks, and a hundreds chart.  So math involves lots of getting up and walking to the different sources.

I learned this week my kids had no idea how to do a crossword puzzle. I dislike busy work from when I was a kid, so I guess we hadn’t really done these before.  Once they figured it out, they happily worked on their Latin together flipping pages to remind them of their vocabulary.

One of the boys got ahold of my camera (what ahold isn’t a word, apparently it’s 2 words, a hold) and took 9 pictures of me placing this skirt piece, which was horribly uncooperative, let me say.  I was short of fabric, but didn’t want to go buy more.  In between I checked some math.

Princess lost her first tooth, and was quite proud of it.  By the by, I just LOVE her freckles.

The kids attempted to create slushies, but to my mind created truly horrific concoctions with whatever they could fit into a cup.  But, they entertained themselves for an hour mucking about in that.

We made an imaginary island, and the kids loved that.  I can’t wait to see our next young learners geography assignment for Illuminations.

We also learned about the 10 Commandments, but I can’t find a single picture for that, so I might just have to sneak pictures of the kids recreating it or something and post that tomorrow.  I swear I took the pictures!

My Best Friend’s Wedding, December 3

What a crazy busy week this has been.  This time last week I was knee deep in sewing projects that HAD to be finished by Tuesday night, so we could travel up to Dallas for a wedding, now it’s all done but the laundry.  So much laundry.

I’m sure you’re all dying for the pictures, and I really want to share them, so even if you don’t want to, here they are!

Friday we got there and did some decorating, then practiced our parts in the wedding, which the kids did quite smashingly.  No tripping, we ironed out who sat where and how they got there, and all was good.

Saturday morning was a flurry of make up, last minute dress fixes, and lots and lots of hair spray.  Princess was tickled as could be to FINALLY be allowed to wear make-up.  She loved all of the attention and did great putting on mascara, getting her hair done, and was patient as could be.  I may not have been quite as patient, but there’s no pictures to prove otherwise.

I love this picture of Princess and I.  She’s happily showing off her new hairstyle, and I’m telling her something.  It’s just so much fun.

My hairstyle was quite a bit of craziness to get done, I’d managed to leave behind my hairband, but my Mom saved the day showing up 4 hours early to get my hair band to me, and then Tami did a spectacular job on my hair.

Princess thoroughly entertained many of us bridesmaids as she played, stood on grates and enjoyed her dress billowing up like a cupcake, and just grinned at everyone.

She was so happy to get a picture with Aunt Tara, she was great for pictures.  Her brothers…….  Not so much.

Now while the bridesmaids and bride spent most of the day getting all fancified.  The groomsmen played.

They practiced posing with their fake weapons.  “Okay now you hold up the pistol like this, and block the sword as he pretends to attack you.”  This was great because it entertained my boys in what could have been a fairly boring time.

It was a day of hurry up and wait, and now hurry again.  But, it was a great day full of laughs.

I got a big kick out of the poor photographer trying to get great pictures of the boys with Tara, and they just weren’t really taking great pictures, no matter how much he tried.  Poor guy, he got all sorts of odd pictures and shadows.

I walked down with Tara’s cousin Brendan, he’s a great guy who I’ve had a lot of fun hanging out with on random occasions as he came down to visit Tara.  The bottom picture is of the 3 Austin bridesmaids, Amanda, Tami, and me.  We’ve all known each other for 20 years, how’s that for a scary thought?

Funny story, my kids kept getting the idea of bridesmaids and groomsmen all messed up, so I kept getting asked “Who are the groomsmaids?”  And they were quite outraged when I’d laugh.

My brother Sean performed the ceremony, which was both cool and a little odd for many people there because they remembered him as a gawky teen who ran into walls and wore mis-matched shoes.

Not so gawky anymore is he?

I almost forgot to put in the SUPER adorable ring bearer and flower girl.

The boys did a great job.  As they walked down Superman slipped a step, and so Batman tried to hurry up to catch up with him, then he slipped down the last several steps, and they recovered great, just waiting for their brother to be ready to go again.  The bottom picture they’re catching sight of Aunt Jenn and Mimi (my sister-in-law and Mom) sitting in the aisle, which totally threw them.

Princess was adorable walking down.  She did a great job scattering petals, and when she got to the bottom quite proudly curtsied for all to see.

The bride and groom quite happily danced the night away, with occasional breaks to dance with their parents or a few lucky friends.

He even sang her a song he wrote.  It was absolutely adorable, and Jeff asked to get the mp3 of it, because it’s sooooo sweet.

It was a lot of fun at the reception.  I got a fair number of pictures, but not as many good ones as I hoped for.  Sadly, I don’t have a single picture of me with Tara.  Boo hoo.

But, Jeff and I danced the night away, tried a few called dances, that were a lot of fun, and you could tell it was a great party when we shut down the band (nearly) and I could barely walk at the end of the night from dancing, and those HORRID high heels.

Sigh, so much fun to be had.  I’m sure there’s two million fun memories I’ll think of later to share, but that’s what I got for you for now.

Now to settle back into somewhat normal life.

CHRISTMAS STUFF

I was quite happy to add a Christmas Stuff column to my Illuminations schedule grid.  Then I was even more excited when I discovered it is possible to make a column only appear for a set period of time (like say the 4 weeks of Advent, how cool is that?).

I’m hoping to have crafts and stuff to add each week in that column, but this week my additions were rather prosaic, all boring stuff like: get out Christmas decorations, make wrapping paper (okay that’s not boring).

We had a sudden opening in our schedule, so we got our Christmas tree on Tuesday, which made everyone happy as clams as we set about decorating.  The kids could barely wait to get the ornaments on and were putting them on as fast as Jeff could get the lights on.  It was really quite fun to sit back and watch.

The only problem was their excitement broke a few of the ornaments, so I’ve got a small pile of glass objects to glue back together (a few from other accidents recently).

I saw a great idea that I pinned to my Advent board, that I have now completely taken over. Instead of Elf on the Shelf (which I go between thinking is hilarious or apalled at how much of a mess he makes).  Catholic Inspired instead has a find the Wise Men challenge.  The Wise Men made it to Bethlehem, but now they are asking around for where the newborn King is.  So far they’ve been in the pantry, our refrigerator, in our toy Bethlehem (no picture), and today in the refrigerator.

The kids are LOVING this, and I’m loving that I don’t have to lie if I forget to move them.  I can just say, “Oops, I forgot to move them today.”  For this week, I also had Mary and Joseph heading towards Bethlehem, so they can play with Bethlehem stable set.  The kids told me Mary and Joseph were too easy to find.  Well yes, I didn’t try to make them hard to find silly kids.

We started on our Advent activities, completing our first several days.  We’ve learned about Creation, Fall of Man, Noah (they loved playing animal Go Fish), and played an Abraham trivia game.  We have two to complete today because certain young boys were sick yesterday, so today is Isaac and Jacob, 2 crafts to do.

We made some Christmas cards, which the kids thought were awesome to make and then they went from my original project to…….  Crazy minecraft Christmas cards, “See Mommy, it’s a Christmas card because I put a Santa hat on his head!”  Riiiiight….