Science Museum and Super Cup II

Ashley was in another play recently.  It was absolutely amazing.  The story was about cancer and the children really pulled off this serious play.  On the last day of the performance "Bean" asked if Ashley could spend the night.  

They had a great time and ended the sleepover with an American Girl runway show.

Saturday the kids went to the Science museum for Engineer's Day.  For the most part they had to stay at their table and show everyone their robot for Lego League.  But when it was over they got to explore the museum a bit.

Aussie wanted to try this age progressive machine.  Unfortunately, something went wrong and his didn't turn out.  But the other two did it as well and the results were quite strange!

 

Ashley age 10

Take a look at the following pictures for the aging results.  I suppose we can look back later to see just how realistic it is.

 

Creepy!

 

Mason was super freaked out by his.

Mason age 10

I suppose the machine tells you not to smile because everyone who did it was not smiling.

 

 

 

 I personally enjoyed the solar system area.

 

 

 

 

I had to get a picture of Aussie by Saturn his favorite planet.

 

And I had to get Mason, my musical wonder, in the big guitar.

 

 

And of course I had to get Ashley with the super cool electricity ball.

 

This week has been crazy!  I've been having cold to the bone spells.  I had blood drawn to see what was going on figuring that it was either the onset of menopause or my thyroid messed up.  Well the blood results found everything to be normal.  So he decided to treat for an imaginary infection.  Well I did notice that some lumps under my armpit had re-appeared and I think that also went into his decision to put me on an antibiotic.  So I started the antibiotic over the weekend.  Sunday night/Monday morning I got sick. REAL SICK!  Most of it made it into a trash bag, that Greg graciously took out. I felt too sick to take care of the kids.  Greg went to work but came home at lunchtime to fix lunch for the kids and work from home. I was proud of myself though, because the kids actually did their schoolwork and came and checked on me before Greg got home. (Well at least they got most of it done- I found out today that some of that stuff didn't get done.)

Tuesday I was still weak.  But then I had a NEW problem.  UGH! UGH! UGH!  What sometimes comes with an antibiotic? A not so nice yeast infection! OUCH!  After getting medicine in me it has stopped hurting today.

I wasn't sure I was going to be ready to play today.  I had plans and wasn't ready to concede.  This morning I felt pretty good.  When I really started getting around and trying to get things into the car I got a little dizzy, but it went away quickly. 

So luckily I felt pretty good the rest of the day.  The kids and I went over to Doris's house.  The kids had a Nerf gun war.  Doris missed having her appetizers on Super Bowl Sunday, so today we had our 2nd anual Super Cup Day.  We made all kinds of appetizers.  I basically picked up most of the things I brought because I didn't think I could make anything homemade.  I didn't feel like going to the store until it was time to actually go to her house.  I meant to take pictures of the food but I didn't.  We had a cream cheese hamburger/sausage dip with tortilla chips, pizza pieces, fruit, veggies, crackers, cheese, Chick Fil A chicken nuggets, chicken wings, piggies in blankets, Sister Schubert rolls, and coctail weenies.

The kids played war for a good long time and Doris and I scrapbooked.  I don't get to work on my book very often, but I'm getting close to finishing my December book.  One important decision was made with it.  It is so large that I decided to stop at Christmas and not go to the end of December, which would include our vacation to Florida.  That would add SEVERAL more pages.  So I will have to scrapbook those into a separate book.

I so desperately wanted to work on my book tonight.  I need to print a few pictures.  So when I got home I attempted to print some pictures. Unfortunately, my printer is broken.  BooHoo! Not only could I not work on my book but now I'm going to have to buy another printer. Urgh!

It's so bizzarre.  I am not tired AT ALL and it is 2:16AM. How does that happen?  I suppose I need to force myself to go to bed.

It's a Snow Day!

Seriously I have no business blogging right now.  I am SO BUSY!  It's a really good busy though! I'm the photographer for the play Ashley is in.  The show is amazing and I'll have to explain it later because I am in the throws of editing, editing and even more editing!

 

But I wanted to stop just for a minute and blog about this morning.

 

I suppose I should start with last night and the fact for 2 nights in a row I stayed up until 5:30AM. (One due to tornadoes and the other due to editing pictures)

I was downright TIRED!

 

Anyway, last night it started to snow- REALLY BIG beautiful flakes! The ground was covered with snow within minutes. Usually, I LOVE my kids to go to tutorial. It means I get a little break without kids for a few hours. But being so very tired I wished for a snow day.

 

I REALLY wished for a snow day.  I got online and signed up for texts for school closings.  Our tutorial follows a  certain county, so if the county closes their schools then we do too.  I got a confirmation email that said I successfully signed up.  But I continued to look online for school closings which there were none at 1:30AM.  I was quite surprised because in Tennessee they close at the threat of a single snowflake.  Here we actually had snow on the ground and NOTHING was being reported!  So I actually watched the news.  I mean HEY I'm desperate!  I want to sleep in!  The news reported that the snow would not stick so there would be no school closings.  I was bummed.

 

I woke up to this:

 

A little frustrated that I didn't get a text saying our county had closed, I got everyone up and ready for school.  Either my alarm didn't come on or it did come on and I turned it off, either way I woke up having to leave in 15 minutes.  No time to check emails, Facebook, websites, TV or anything else.  We were rushing to get our stuff together and out the door.  I didn't receive a text so I assumed we still had school.

I was getting more aggravated by the minute.  My car doors were frozen shut.  We were able to get the driver door open.  So the kids climbed on my seat with their wet feet to get into the car.  The windshield wipers were frozen and wouldn't work. Last Friday they delayed school for 2 hours because of just a threat of snow and all it did was rain.  So for them not to close today just got on my nerves.

On our way to school we pass an elementary school.  I looked over and there was not a car in sight.  So I thought I would pull over and look up on my phone school closings.  We didn't get very far when I found out school was actually closed today.

But WHY didn't I get the text?  I got a confirmation email!  Upon investigation I found out the reason I didn't get the text.  !Ay Caramba! I put Greg's cell number when I signed up.  DUH!  It would help if I put MY phone number! Geeeeee!  Anyway, Greg got the text and assumed I forwarded it to him to let him know we would be at home.  It is corrected!  I went and changed the number, so hopefully next time I'll know before I even roll out of bed!

Ashley and Mason played out in the icy snow.  They attempted to jump on the trampoline.

 

 

They bundled up:

 

 

But didn't stay out there too long!  It was COLD!

 

 

I didn't go back to bed, but I did have time to edit more pictures and relax at home a bit.

 

They had another performance tonight and just when I thought I had all the pictures I needed, I got some super awesome shots tonight!  So I'll be up super late again tonight.  But I just might be done this time!

 

Ears pierced and MyPlate...blah blah blah

 Guess What?  My little girl got her ears pierced.  Her buddy, Edie got her ear's pierced last week.  Her Mom told me where they went and how gentle they were and that they were able to pierce both ears at the same time.  So we headed to there on Monday evening.  Unfortunately, there was only one person working when we were there so Ashley had to get her ears pierced separately. 

Ashley asked me not to share this on Facebook, because she wanted to be the one to tell her friends.  She's seen her friends at play practice and her best friend tonight.  She will still surprise some friends on Friday.  So if you are reading this and Ashley hasn't told you then shhhh! don't tell!

 

The part that scared me was they have the Mom clean them for the first time as they watch to see if you do it correctly.  They had put a dot on her ear in purple marker to mark where they would put the hole.  When I started to clean the ear, the marker started to run and I thought it was blood.  I was about to freak out then I realized what it actually was.

Her friend, Edie came along with us for moral support.  And they both had to have Cheetah paws.

 

I had a huge paragraph typed out and lost it!  Oh that makes me so angry!

 

Last time we went to the doctor she told us to look up the new food pyramid/my plate and get the kids involved in picking out good foods to eat. "They can cut pictures out of a magazine. It will be fun!", She said.  Does she even KNOW my family?  Makes me not even want to go back.  But I know she is right and I have been dreading this day since I spoke with her.

 

Today I looked up MyPlate and printed off all the information.

We will start small, but I NEED your prayers!

I am going to be hit with a lot of resistance!

 

Aussie hardly likes anything!  He does not like ANY fruits or vegetables!  And he barely likes any meat.  Ashley likes fruits, but not many vegetables and she despises dairy. (I'm right there with her on that!)  Mason is a good eater and I don't have to worry about him.  He will go with the flow!

 

Tonight I went to the grocery store.  Good grief it was expensive.  I'm hoping that it will last for 2 weeks, but I doubt it.  I know I'll need to get milk, fruits and meat for next week.

 

 I AM NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!!!!

I'm asking for you to PLEASE pray for me as I try to implement something I'm not comfortable with myself.  Pray that Greg will be supportive and the kids will learn to like things they didn't know they liked.  Pray they will try things willingly and not make it so hard on me.  Pray that I can come up with a menu and stick with it.

 

OK I'm terribly exhausted.  I'm off to bed!

Random Act of Kindness

I made someone's day today!

Recently I went to a cookie exchange and I won first place for the yummy cookies I made.  I made Nutella and Sea salt stuffed Sugar cookies!  Don't they sound yummy?  I found the recipe on Pinterest.  And you can have it too!  Click Here.

Anyway, guess what my prize was? You would never ever guess, so let me tell you...

A $25 gift card to Tiffany's.

  It came in this sweet little box, all nicely wrapped with a bow.  I was so excited!  But then the realization hit me...What in the world could I possibly buy at Tiffany's worth $25?  I certainly can't afford to buy anything there, except maybe jewelry cleaner and well I didn't need any expensive jewelry cleaner.

I got the chance to go there today and look around the store.  I looked at all the beautiful things. I did happen to find a deck of cards for $30!

Really?  Playing cards for $30?  I was tempted to get them, but the frugal person inside of me just couldn't do it!  I can buy a deck of cards at the $1.00 store and be just as happy with them as I would be with these cards. Besides, I play all of my solitaire/card games online anyway.

The sales people there were really nice, but the guard had his eye on me. I could tell! He made it quite obvious.  So I went and talked to him.  He was an older man probably in his late 70's. I told him I was given a gift card but it was probably worthless to me since I couldn't afford to buy anything.  He smiled and agreed with me, but did mention the jewelry cleaner.  I told him my plan.  I was going to see if anyone was going to buy anything and then I would give them my gift card.

I spotted a young lady buying something.

I walked up to her and the clerk and said, "I can't afford anything in here and I have this gift card if you would like to have it. It's for $25."

Both of them were extremely stunned.  Their mouths just dropped open.

Then the customer just stunned kept saying thank you over and over again.

And as I was walking out the door the guard nodded and said Thank you to me.

It felt good!

I thought about asking on Facebook if any of my friends/family would be shopping at Tiffany's anytime soon, but this just seemed like the right thing to do.

Then I headed over to Michael's to find a 90% off sale on Christmas items.  Woooopeee!  I bought several things for pennies.

Then on top of that, when I picked up Ashley at the theater today I went into the Save-A-Lot store next door.  And they had a 75% off sale on a few toys.  They only sell toys at Christmas time so they were getting rid of them. Major score!  I bought a lighted reusable rocket for each of my student's in my Astronomy class for $2.49 each. I only have 6 kids. I bought a couple nice stuffed animals for $1.50 each.  I thought I could give them as baby gifts. I got a glow in the dark Nerf gun for $5.00.  OH so cool.  I would have gotten one for each of my kids but they only had one.  And I got this awesome football for $3.50, which when I bought it I just thought was a regular Nerf football.

It is absolutely the coolest thing!  You put these frames on that have either green or red lights.  Then on the football itself it has several reflectors.  So by wearing these frames with lights it causes the football to light up at night.  I tried to get Mason to go outside and play with me, because I knew he would love it.  But he was playing with Ashley so I asked Aussie to go outside and play with me.

He had a blast!  He would do awkward dancing and throw the ball.  Then I called inside to Greg...You have to come see this.  And as I handed over my glasses/frames to Greg, I sat back and watched them have fun.  And thought to myself...I just tricked the two most un-athletic boys in this house to play football!

We came in.  And a little bit later Aussie asked if we could go out again.  If it hadn't been 11:00PM I probably would have done it.

Anyway, I think Ashley and Mason would love it too.  So I had my friend pick me up another one while she was still by the theater.  I knew they would be gone before I could get back there.  Now we will all have the glasses and be able to play together!

BTW...I did check out 2 other Save-A-Lot's to see if they had any of the Nerf guns.  One didn't have anything and the other one had 4 more guns, but they weren't marked down.  I showed them my receipt and how another S-A-L sold it for $5.00, but they told me they were individually owned and couldn't possibly mark them down that low. Phoooey!

Still I consider it a very successful day!

And even better- it's MLK day tomorrow----NO SCHOOL!

On our way home

I am a master packer.  It's true, I have a gift for it.  And if anyone brings anything out and tries to "help" it sets me off! I don't mean to be rude, but it totally disrupts my thinking. Don't put that there you won't be able to see out the window...this would fit better here...take that back into the house I'm not ready for it. I'm pretty bossy, but I want us all to have leg room and be able to see out the windows. I didn't think to take a picture until after we got home and things had been slightly moved and disheveled.

It was a long drive home. 13 hours in the car.

We stopped at Pizza Hut for dinner.  I so desperately wanted something other than burgers. Stopping there was actually a mistake.  And I should have known that when I walked in the door. That little stop cost us a whole hour.

But thankfully it was  OH SO good!

 We are home!

 Ashley is asleep and won't budge!  She finally stirs when Greg comes back out to the car, after me shaking her and yelling for her to get up.  All of us are tired!  

 But Greg goes out for a couple of hours.  His good friend, Daniel is in town for one more night from Japan.  

The boys fell asleep on the couch by 10:30 and I was asleep by 11:30.

We are safe! We are home!  All is good!

And even though we didn't see this on the trip, I found it on my phone and wanted to share it.  I saw this when Ashley and I went to Opryland.  I don't know if you can tell by the picture but it is one of those tiny "smart" cars.  Someone put a wind-up crank on the back of the car so it looks like a toy.  I thought that was quite funny and had to snap a picture.

Part 4 and final part of last day of Vacation

 Alex is going to cosmetology school.  So Ashley and I got to get our nails done! YAY!

Alex brought her kit and she did my nails after dinner.

I asked her for something fun so I didn't know what I would get.

The nail polish in the bottle looked purple, but when she put it on it looked navy.  Then she colored the tips black with glitter, added the white strip and she even put a little rhinestone flower on each ring finger nail.  So much fun.

 I didn't get a picture of Ashley's nails.  She had florescent pink.  She put a glow in the dark top coat on the pink.  Then she put a gray crackle polish on top of that.  So when it crackled you could see the pink shine through.  Then when you went in the dark you could see the cracks glow in the dark.

It was the last night and we had promised Aussie we would take him back to French Fry Heaven.  So we went downtown to St. George street.

That is one happy boy!

Ashley was exhausted!

Greg got a Parmesan and Garlic sauce on one of the large fries.

No one but Greg was pleased with that decision.

Mason got one of the small fries and was a little upset, but it all worked out because Ashley didn't want all of her fries.

 While the boys went back to the car, Ashley and I walked up to the plaza.  I had seen this tree from our trolley ride but wanted to see it up close.

Then we went back to the house and had to get packed up.

I spent entirely too long rigging something up in the car that was a great idea but didn't work well. I figured it might not work, but I wanted to try it.

We got a little projector for Christmas.  So I made it so you could play the Wii in the car. Unfortunately in the daytime, you couldn't see the picture very well.  And I was afraid at night, the light coming from the projector would be too bright for the driver.  But the kids thought the screen I set up was too wobbly.  They tried playing on the ceiling, but it was too difficult.

Anyway, I also wanted to get my pictures edited so that I could leave them for Steve and Gayle and do a couple loads of laundry before leaving.

I went to bed at 5:30AM!

I was terribly exhausted and by the end of editing pictures I have no idea if I actually got all of the ones I edited to them.  I saw that some were missing and was able to add them, but I didn't check them all. 

So Gayle/Steve if there is a picture you are interested in that you think I might have, let me know and I'll see if I have it.

Part 3- Last day of Vacation

We don't all get together very often. So this was a big deal!

Here is the original crew:

 And here they are with their offspring:

Starting with oldest sibling to the youngest.

Stephen and his daughter Kaitlin 

Greg and our crew

Kevin with his wife Tracie

Her children Cameo and Noah

His children Karley and Shaina

They get the award for being the most colorful!

Kristen with her husband John

Alex is John's daughter who lives with them

Cassie is not shown- she lives with her Mom and was not there this weekend.

And Blade- Kristen's son

Kristen mentioned this being their first family picture!

 I originally captioned this as the men, but didn't mean to infer John wasn't a man.  So I guess I shall just say brothers with their Dad.

brothers

I love this picture below!

Siblings

All of the grandkids

And the whole crew

 Then we ate!  Hamburgers and hotdogs!

Oh Kristen meant to thank you for blow drying Ashley's hair today while I ran around like a crazy woman!

Next up... nail polish and french fries (thankfully not together)