In the Bluegrass!

We arrived safely in KY yesterday and today when the Buddy got ready for church, the Sman realized he had the same shirt.

Let's try that again!

I can't get over how much Sman has grown. He's nearly at my chin.

Today was also my sister's birthday. So we had a good time celebrating and eating cake and ice cream.

I'll be nice and not tell you how old she is.... but I will say she looks fantastic!

Happy Birthday, Aunt Cream!!!!

I hope your summer vacation is as happening as ours. We've been busy, busy and its going to be that way all month. I will be traveling back and forth to KY and doing other various activities with limited internet access.

THEREFORE, THERE WILL BE LIMITED BLOG ENTRIES FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS.

I will be seeing many of my readers in person this week, so I'm sure that will more than make up for the break. I will do my best to post date my entries so you can read about our adventures.

I would also like for you to remember the Man's brother in your prayers today and in the next couple of weeks as he undergoes some health tests. May they come back with good news.

Buddy finished up his baseball season 7 - 2.
And thanks for reading!

Last Game of the Season

The Buddy played in his last baseball game this season and it was a great game. We really had a blast being the coach and team mom. He was so confident on the mound.

He also got the game ball and rightly so, he caught two fly balls for two quick outs in the 3rd inning.

The Man as Coach and M.E.

Memorial Day!

The Day of Remembrance was a day M.E. will always remember. I got pulled over on the highway!

First let M.E. say, I've never gotten a ticket of any kind in my life. I've never even been pulled over for speeding. So in my defence, there is a small (3 or 4 mile) stretch of highway that we travel connecting two major highways on our trip through MO. I had just gotten on this connection and was messing with the cruise control when I saw the trooper. He immediately hit his lights and pulled M.E. over. He clocked M.E. at 71 in a 60. I have a clean record and fortunately it will remain clean. He only gave me a verbal warning.

*sigh*

*eye roll*

Unfortunately, the Man is having a field day teasing M.E. about it.

Rain, Rain Go Away!

We woke up this morning to a gentle rain, which slowly turned into a shower, then gentle drizzle, then down pour, monsoon, etc., etc.,
All the Men were scheduled to go golfing at the lodge, and like the dedicated men they are, they went. On more than one occasion us, Moms wondered if they really were playing golf or not.

It rained for nearly 12 straight hours. Now, normally the Man and I like rain. It reminds us of WA, but when you've got 8 kids in a camp site with little to no shelter and you want to keep them entertained and somewhat dry is a little bit of a task.

First they played with umbrella's until is started to pour, then we made a small movie theater in one of the shelters and let them watch a movie on the laptop. They even had popcorn.

Next we sat around and started to sing camp songs, but M.E. decided we needed a fire and spent the next 3 hours concentrating on getting one going. I did! When the Men finally returned, they had indeed played 18 holes and were wet dogs, the campsite was a muddy mess, everyone was wet & cranky and quite frankly ready to go home.

But we rallied! We weren't here to marvel at the campground, see the sites, watched movies, or sleep. We were here to see our friends, let our kids play together, make memories that will remain with us until our last days on Earth. The rain, the mud, the misery only makes it more memorable. I know today is a day that Buddy will always remember. So I'd do it all over again just for that!

Camping

It's true we love to camp. I'm not exactly sure why we like it so much, but it's just a great time. I sit and relax and let the kids run around and play. We eat, drink and catch-up with our friends, some of which we hadn't seen since last Memorial Day.

Today, we went for a scavenger hunt and played around the camp site. We brought birthday presents for all the kiddos (as we missed all their bdays), so we had fun playing with their new toys, such as Little Guy's bubble machine. It was a big hit with Little S (whose 2 1/2,) GL (whose 2) and Little Guy.

They had a blast.

Little S is too cute. Her personally is so unique and adorable. She certainly like being dirty this weekend. It suited her just fine.

Speaking of Little S, she brought her battery-powered John Deere Gator. The boys loved it!

Buddy drove it in the ditch several time, once while going backwards, so we had to turn it off. Little Guy was pretty funny too!

Buddy and the Man also went putt-putting and rented a paddle boat at the lake. Little Guy played hours on the playground (which luckily was right next to our sites). Then after dark, Sunshine and her Daddy handed out 60 glow-sticks. Let's just say that was AWESOME!

Camping or Bust!

Today was Buddy's last day of school, so we picked him up early and hit the road for our annual Memorial Day camping trip with the KY Crew. We look forward to this trip every year, we just couldn't wait to get there and see everyone.

We opted out of stopping for a real supper and just would have snacks at the gas stations and restroom breaks we took along the way. Here, Little Guy enjoys a banana at juice box on the curb. This year there will be 8 families, with a total of 8 children, Buddy being the oldest. Let's just say it's fun!

Before & After

Little Guy's hair had finally gotten so long and to the point that it was in his eyes and he was complaining.

BEFORE:

So I asked him tonight if I could cut it. He surprisingly said yes. So off to the bathroom to squirm and fuss with dull scissors to relieve his eyes of the distressing hair.

AFTER:

It's not straight, but its exactly what it needed to be. Novice can clean in up next week in KY.

Field Day

Today was field day at school and let M.E. say we are all exhausted. I helped with the tricycle races, which was just hilarious when the big kids got on them. I did however manage to get a few pics of Buddy as he made his way around to all the events. I caught up with him first at the face painting/hair coloring station.

Green-Haired Buddy!

The sun was in his face, so he wasn't looking too happy, but believe M.E., he was having a blast. After this we got to visit for a minute. When I was finally done with my last group of kids, I caught up with him at the water slide. Of course, this is the hit of field day. Its a pretty cool deal. It just an inflatable with water dripping down it and a small pool at the bottom. Although the muddy feet of all the kids had turned the pool dark brown, I tired not to look. GO BUDDY!Pretty cool and fabulous day. All the kiddos were pretty tired and cranky by the time we made it to the ball field for a make-up game. We played the best team in the league and unfortunately they beat us 21-17. They congratulated us though, because we'd given them the best game all season. It was oh, so exciting with so many close plays, home runs, and fast running. The kiddos were completely pooped-out after the game. I'm sure many of them fell asleep on the car ride home. Buddy came close and we were only 2 minutes from home.

L'ill Chef

After school, the Buddy was complaining that he was starving. This is a common theme with him, as he eats more food on a daily basis that I do. I've never actually calculated his calorie intake but I'd guess its abnormal. Anyhow, I told him that if he was "starving" he could got cook supper. I totally thought he'd whine about it, but instead he asked what we were having and I told him lasagna after a few minutes he decided to cook it his self, with my assistance of course.

First, I told him all the ingredients and he collected all of them his self. (I'd browned the gr. beef yesterday and it was just in the fridge).

While he let M.E. warm the ground beef, he grated the cheese.

He cut open the ricotta, dumped it in, cracked an egg, scrambled it (as he would say) and then added that to the cheese mixture. I mixed it for him.

Next he added the Ragu to the warm ground beef and stirred it.

I spooned a little ground beef to the bottom of the dish and he added alittle extra Ragu, then it was time for noodles.

We use the oven ready kind, because its just so much easier and faster. There's love in every layer.

Next we added a layer of cheese mixture then the secret ingredient, but I guess after this post it won't be a secret any more. It'll just become the family recipe.

Pepperonis! I love them and so do the boys. And since I have a 5 lb bag of them in the freeze we can put all the pepperoni we want. He also counted each pepperoni as it put them on. At #26, he next said 28. I said, "uh, Buddy you skipped 27", he replied, "no, I didn't. I'm counting my 2s." and thus he completed counting his pepperonis by 2s. He just so amazing.

We repeated the layers one more time before topping with remaining cheese mixture and a couple spoon fulls of sauce. Buddy got a little carried about with the Ragu, so this is going to be extra juicy. Buddy presents his "50 Pepperoni Lasagna"


Edit: It was delicious!

Empty Nest Syndrome

Having only discovered the nest with the baby birds last week, I was quite distraught today, when the last baby bird tried to fly. It just so happened that I had went outside to move the water hose, when I caught sight of the little bird perched on the edge of his nest. If only I had my camera, so I stood frozen for about 30 seconds and he did it. He jumped and fluttered his wings as he landed on the ground and began hopping around. This time, I sprint in the house for my camera.

The pics are a little fuzzy, as I was using the extra zoom feature on my camera that I really don't know how to use, but I just didn't want to get too close and scare him.
He fluttered and fluttered. He would get about a foot off the ground on his best leap. It was so cool. I was really rooting for him and he didn't really seem that scared of M.E. As I sat in the grass, he was hopping all around M.E. Finally, he made his way to the fence and started fluttering again. And finally he made it to the first rail but could only hang on for about 30 seconds.

After several attempts, I decided to leave him to his flying lessons and begin mourning the empty next.

Agony of Defeat

Buddy's team lost their baseball game tonight. *sigh* It was the teams first lost and the first time this season that Buddy's gotten out and he was a little disappointed, but overall it was a pretty good game and we had team pictures afterwards, so by the time we headed to the car he was in good spirits again.

Playing Catch-Up Again!

The weekend and blogging aren't working together right now. And the next 6 weeks will not be any easier. With camping trips, vacations, visits and business trips, the Man and I are going to be super busy. Please bear with M.E.

Treat

As I've mentioned this week, Buddy has been doing super good at school. Either he's finally learned self-control & good decision making or his teacher is giving us all a break with only 1 week of school left. Whatever the cause/reason, he had all smiley faces on his Friday report. We were so happy for him. He had 4 last week for a total of 9. I think he did this one other time this school year, but its not the norm.
Yesterday morning, he started brainstorming what we (the Man and M.E.) could do for him as a special treat for being so good at school. He decided he wanted to go spend the night in a hotel and swim. I immediately said, we aren't spending that kind of money so you can swim. However the Man thought it a great idea. What? He remember that last week, he received a reimbursement from city taxes when he worked in KY and he had been debating how to use it and he thought this would be perfect.
I must say I was surprised. I really thought the Man would use this money for hunting gear or new CDs, but instead he wanted to reward his sons. Now that's a MAN!
So off we go to a hotel. It was only blocks from our house, which was so funny. We could practically see our house. We checked-in and immediately the boys got their swimming gear on and headed for the pool. The boys wound up swimming three different times and had a blast.
Little Guys simply has no fear of the water. He just loves it. Buddy, too!
What a special treat! It was so worth it!

Baby Birds

Going out with the Man to check on the garden, I discovered some little friends.

The ironic thing is.... we have a birdhouse that Grandpa and Buddy made, hanging on the fence almost directly across from this nest, no more than 30 feet away.

Sunshine!

We had an abundance of sunshine today, which was perfect for doing laundry. With all the rain we've been having, I've been unable to use the clothes line, but today, I loaded it up.

Looking forward to having nothing on the weekend schedule.

Storms

A quick note to let everyone know we survived the storms last night, although it was exciting with all the lightning. It continuously thundered for an hour and shook the house several times, rattling all the windows. It even woke up Buddy, which is pretty hard to do.
I think we are up to 11 days with perception (I'm pretty sure she meant "precipitation" -JB). At least 4 more to go, if Grandmaw is right.

Edit: The Man did manage to capture some great rain pics last night.

Note, the Man pulled all the way up, as to hopefully avoid a busted windshield from large hail, but fortunately the hail was only pea sized. Also, note the cascading sheet of rain coming off the house although we have gutters. Yes, it was raining very hard, but if you look closely about 1 foot or 2 from the downspout there's no wall of water coming off the gutters. Want to know why? That's the spot were Buddy's lost baseball is. It backs up the water so it has to go over the gutter instead of down the gutter. ugh! Its eventually going to get washed down to the downspout and then we will be major trouble. Perhaps I can get the Man up there this weekend and remove it.

Batting practice this afternoon, and as you know it has rained alot here, so the field had some standing water.

1 three-yr old + 1 small pond + 1 hour of free time = a very muddy little guy.

I didn't even tell him no, or to stay out of it. It would have just been too exhausting for both us and I thought to myself. Tomorrow is it going to be a big deal that he played in the water & mud? No, not really. So I let him have his fun. Come on, you are only 3 once, right?

Letter People Day

This school year, Buddy has spent at least one week with each letter of the alphabet. They have these little inflatable people called Letter People and they are known for various things, i.e. Mr. B is known for his beautiful buttons, so on and so forth. Well, last week they finished up the alphabet and this week they are celebrating that fact.
Thus, Letter People Day, complete with letter pancakes for breakfast, letter cookies for snacks, special letter activities, and costumes. Yep, each student was to dress up like a letter person.
This was the difficult part because Buddy couldn't decided who he wanted to be. He went through all the letters, then decided not to go as a Mrs., that's for girls, so that narrowed it down to about half. He finally decided on Mr. Q, who is known for his quiet questions. The questions part I get, but Buddy is anything but quiet.
Here's a snapshot of him and the Zman taken this morning by our friend Kathy (Zman's Mom). Aren't they just he best buds! Zman went as Mr. Z known for his zippy zippers, of course. P.S. THE SUN IS SHINING! WOW!

Edit: I just downloaded some pics and so I want to share this one. Buddy has been doing very good with following direction, etc at school and has stayed on Green for 7 consecutive days. This is such a big deal that we stopped for some ice cream today, and I got this pic.

More than a 1000 words for this one!

Stormy

For those of you with cable, you've likely heard about the VORTEX 2 project that's taking place here in OK. For those who don't know, there is a mutli-million dollar weather project our here in the plains chasing tornadoes, so that we may better understand them. I'm really hoping to see some of these guys in town or on the interstate, not a tornado. I mean how cool would it be to meet Mike Ciedale, the guy from the weather channel. (I'm not sure how to spell his name, but that's how it sounds). And I know they've got to be getting close to us, because today we got a really quick severe thunderstorm that dropped a bunch of hail in a matter of a few seconds.

It was melting so fast I barely got a pic of how big it really was.

And just for the record, Buddy's team won there game last night. We are now 5 - 0. woo-hoo!

A Story

Approximately 10 years ago, when I was talking my final calculus class of my college career, the professor asks us to introduce ourselves and what it was we planned to do with our education. Being a wisecrack, I stood up and said my name and told him I was going to be a PTO President. The entire class cracked up, but deep down I knew it to be some-what true. Well, today I'm one step closer to accomplishing that goal. I have been asked to become Buddy's school PTA Secretary and tonight is our very first meeting for next year. Yay! I'm really honored and excited about being a part of the PTA and you never know, I might just be the president one day!

Buddy also has his fifth tee ball game tonight. Hope he plays well, but in the mean time we are having a snack.

My love for cereal is most certainly shared by the boys. I think we could all eat our weight in it daily - that is if the Man would let us. But I'm not complaining, its not very healthy, but oh so good - especially with marshmellows.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all!

The Man got M.E. tickets to see the traveling version of the broadway muscial "WICKED". Its the Wizard of Oz from the view point of the Wicked Witch of the West. As some of you may know, I'm a WofOz nut. I love it sooooo much. I'm so proud of the Man for getting M.E. such a fabulous gift. I'm so happy and blessed with my beautiful family. The Man even cooked breakfast, lunch and supper today and I laid on the couch. Ahhhh, it was truely a happy day!

Typical Saturday

It was cloudy all day today, but I'm not sure if it ever actually rained. I've lost count on the rain total, but I think we are about at 8 days half way to 15.

We worked in and around the house all day today. Its amazing how fast things can come undone, if you don't stay right on top of them. After lunch the Man and the boys shared a pint of ice cream.

It easy to see why my boys, i.e. Little Guy never wears a shirt. He doesn't realize he has too. And do you think that ice cream is going to help the Man's Ultimate Weigh-Loss Challenge? We haven't updated in a month or so, but I'll try to get on that Monday as it will be the 11th.

Tonight we had a fiesta at church as a thank you for all the youth group volunteers. We had a really good time visiting with all my friends. I'm so blessed to have only lived here 10 months and have such good friends already.

Sunshine!

We finally had a break in the clouds so I managed a brief game of pretend baseball with the boys. It is always too funny to play pretend with these. Little Guy really doesn't have the concept completely down and Buddy kept changing his mind. But we had fun, none the less.

Look at this kid and his stance.

And I think I might have to change Little Guy's name to Mr. Mini-Man!

The Big Dinner

The Man's big work dinner was anything but exciting, but at least we got a free meal out of the deal and I got to meet the president of the company, so that's pretty cool I guess. After several wardrobe changes, I must say the Man and M.E. looked pretty good. Our friend, Chris took our photo when we picked up the boys.

I actually managed to put my hair up in a french twist all by myself. A big deal for M.E. as I'm not that savvy with hair, makeup, clothes, etc.

I was pretty proud of it.

Quotes for Creativity

"Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity: be intensely yourself. Don't try to be outstanding; don't try to be a success; don't try to do pictures for others to look at - just please yourself."- Ralph Steiner

"Positive thoughts are not enough. There have to be positive feelings and positive actions." - Paula Wessell

I keep up with about 7 blogs through out the week, 5 of them are scrapbook celebrities and I love reading about scrapbooking, seeing their work and hearing how they struggle just the same as the rest of us to get things done . It's refreshing. Today, 2 of them had quotes to share about the process of doing and being happy - just be happy doing. I loved both of them, so I thought I'd share them.
I'll be posting pics from around here later. Not a whole lot going on though. Buddy has a baseball game tonight, but the Man and I have a work dinner thingy to go to. Its apparently a huge deal, thus why we are missing Buddy's game. This will be the first time, I've ever missed any of Buddy's games. EVER! Its completely heart breaking and I could cry if I really thought about it long enough, but I'm sure this will not be the last time, I have to miss a game.
More Later!

Cinco de Mayo

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, Mexico's independence day, so my friend Esther (who happens to be bilingual English/Spanish) invited my family to go eat with her family at our local Mexican restaurant. The wait to get in was long, but so worth it. I love hanging out with her because she is so REAL and funny and wise. She also has three boys, wow!

She is the one new friend here in OK who actually gets concerned if she hasn't spoken with M.E. at least once in the last week and calls til she gets me to make sure everythings ok. She's an Army Wife and knows what its like to be without family in a new state.

This makes M.E. drink from a saucer because my cups runs over.

And this morning I discovered this..... Baby Grass!

the Man's efforts to reseed the yard is paying off. Its so awesome.