Friday, October 31, 2014

Not Halloweeny At All

Our district won't let the kids wear their Halloween costumes to school.
(Which is absolutely ridiculous. It's Friday and Halloween, yes, I'm sure it would be the costume that would keep them from learning anything.)
 
 
Instead, they had red ribbon week (stay off drugs) and they were supposed to wear different clothes for that everyday.  (Except nothing was a "costume" and clearly a girl mom thought up the days because 4 of the days were "girly".)
 
 
Here are their "dress-up" days this week.  JR isn't in some of the pictures because he's 11, and some days 11 year olds won't have their pictures made...I'm guessing simply because they are 11.
 
 
Crazy sock day (super girly)
 

Tie-dye day (very girly)
 
 
Neon colors day (girly)
 
 
Jersey day (They finally threw the boys a bone.) 
Kyle and Reed's whole football team wore their team jerseys.  They're the only 1st graders on the team, everybody else is in 2nd or 3rd. So yeah, they pretty much thought they were the coolest kids who have ever walked the face of the earth.
 
 
 
And today, Halloween, was camo day (which I know you think is boyish, but skinny camo jeans are all the rage with the moms at school...so no, it's a girl theme too).
 

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Categories

It's that time again.
Time to clean out Reed's drawings to make room for the new ones.
 
 
In the Disney Category we have:
 
Ray the Firefly from The Princess and the Frog
 
And Mike from Monsters Inc.
 
 
In the Muppet Category:
(And yes, I know Disney now owns the Muppets, but they're still the old Muppets to me.)
 
Miss Piggy

 
Kermit

Becker
 
 
 Representing the animal category (the big ones and the little ones):
 
Moose

 
Musk Ox


And a mouse
 
 
In the "I Think he Might have Forgotten his Pants" Category:
 
a fireman
 
 
 
And in the "My Kids are Also Excited we Start Decorating for Christmas in 2 Days" Category:
 

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Sour Pumpkin Grapes

So guess what my pumpkin won?
Nothing. Nada. Squat.
 
If there were only 1 or 2 winners I wouldn't be so miffed, but there were tons of winners, and I walked away with zilch.
 
The sour grapes portion will begin now so you can see just how badly I was robbed.
Robbed!
 
Olaf is a character from a movie, not a book.
As is the minion from Despicable Me. Movie, not book.
 
I don't have anything to say bad about Amelia Bedelia, she's fine.
(Not as awesome as Scaredy Squirrel, but fine.)


 
These two beat me in "most like the character" and "best animal".

 
 
And just as a refresher, here's how much mine looked like the character.
 
This took 3 seconds to make.
 
 
This took a bit longer, maybe a minute.
(Also, it's a movie.)
 
So this next group are ones I think are good.
These moms worked as hard as I did.
 
Clearly this boy mom has some artistic talent.



 
 
This mom can sew!

 
 
This next group was big on "props". 




 
 
Speaking of props, I guess if you set your pumpkin on a skateboard you win, cause this is the grand prize winner.
 
So next year I'll know to just go in my own prop closet, dress up my pumpkin, and throw some roller skates on it.
 
Wigs, hats, and wheels seem to be the way to go.
 

Monday, October 27, 2014

This Weekend

This weekend:
 
 Kyle and Reed lost both their football game (kinda surprising) and their soccer game (not surprising at all).
 
JR had 2 opera practices, and Granny Sherry and I took him to see Chicago.

I love Chicago and I hope JR gets to play Billy Flynn (the part Richard Gere was in the movie) one day.  I think he'd be so good at it!
 
 
And I ran the Houston Half Marathon.
I did it in 2:16:18 (a 10:24 pace).
Which makes me 92 places more average than all the women, and 5 places more average than my age group. 
 
(But still makes me below average when you add in all the guys.)
 
This pre-race selfie was the only picture I took.

Friday, October 24, 2014

My Pumpkin

A note came home from school about a pumpkin decorating contest the library was having.
You couldn't carve the pumpkin and it needed to be a storybook character.
 
It was also billed as a "family project". (With one entry per family.)
 
We all know what "family project" means.
 
And with that said, how do you like my pumpkin I turned in?
 
It's Scaredy Squirrel.
 
 
If you're not familiar with Scaredy Squirrel he has a series of books.
He looks like this.

Since they were very insistent they didn't want any carved pumpkins, I figured they didn't care if it was real or not.  I bought a plastic trick or treat pumpkin, took off the handle, and turned it upside down.
 
The body I free handed onto cardboard and painted. I covered the tail over with some felt.
The eyes are magnets and the ears are cardboard covered in that squishy craft foam stuff.
 
I'm crossing my fingers I'm a winner!  

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

I Think We're Broke

The weather was nice here this weekend, and we were able to make it out to the Renaissance Festival.
Jason loves the Renaissance Festival, and in the past, I've been able to tolerate it.
But now it's gotten so crazy expensive I can't even enjoy it.  I think I need to be left at home from now on.
 
 
We've missed the last 5 or 6 years since we didn't live here, but not to worry, it hasn't changed a bit.
 
 
There were still turkey legs.
 Jason also got a sausage on a stick, a steak on a stick, 2 giant pretzels, a bag of kettle corn, and an ice cream brownie Sunday.  (We could have taken the entire family to the nicest, fanciest restaurant in Houston and spent less money.)


They played all the same games that have been there forever.


And people are still dressing up in costumes that have absolutely nothing to do with the Renaissance time period. 
But I guess the joke's on me since all 3 of my kids screamed "THOR!" when they saw this guy. 
Then JR asked if he would take a picture with them.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

It's a Birthday Day

Today is Granny Sherry's birthday.
We celebrated on Sunday because there was no way we could have today.
(Football until 6:30 and opera from 6-9)
 

I'm so thankful I have Sherry to help me with these kids.
It seems everyday they all need to be somewhere at the same time.
I think Kyle and Reed actually spend more time in Granny Sherry's car than mine!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Not a Big Fan of the Team

Have I mentioned Kyle and Reed are playing soccer this fall?
 
Probably not since they've lost every game.
Every game.
 
I hate to lose. Soccer is painful this year.
 
 
Unfortunately for Kyle and Reed, they got they short end of the stick when it came to a team.
Here's how their 8 person team breaks down:
 
*2 kids are good (1 of them is mine).
 
*2 kids are pretty good  (1 of those is mine too).
 
*1 kid is ok.
 
*3 kids have never played before, have no idea what they are doing, don't come to practice, but show up to all the games.
(As you can imagine, I'm a big fan of theirs and have tons of patience with them.  Jason has to shush my remarks about them every game.)
 
 
The kids are old enough now that you can't just have 1 or 2 good ones carry the team.
Kyle and Reed's team scored 2 goals yesterday.  I believe the other team's score was a million. 
 
 
 
 
Here's Kyle keeping the other team from scoring their millionth and one goal.
You also get to enjoy a conversation between Jason and me. 
(We were discussing how they aren't learning anything in soccer, but how the other league doesn't play in the spring.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHJGpHBopb8&list=UUpzgo8w2l7v2pN0rnW_VJpw
 

Friday, October 17, 2014

The Exact Opposite

Seems I've been posting a lot about football lately, so I thought I'd give you pretty much the exact opposite of football.
 
JR's opera practice.
 
He told me yesterday that he loves going to opera practice.  I'm glad because it certainly wouldn't be my idea of "fun".
 
Their teacher/instructor/coach (I'm not sure what the opera name for him is) is very serious (as he should be, it's a professional show).  He treats them like adults at a job, and doesn't sugar-coat anything.
 
Here's a little peek into rehearsal, and if you can't understand what they're singing, you're not supposed to...it's German.
 
(JR's wearing a striped shirt, and the guy standing up is the actual conductor of the opera. He had come in to check up on their progress.)

And here's the link if the video below doesn't work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtaZQjOjP3A
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

A Little Football

How cute are their football pictures?
It's actually one picture of them together, but with the magic of editing I'll have one of them together and these individuals.

 
 
Their game last night didn't turn out quite like anybody had planned. About 4 or 5 plays into the game a boy on the other team got tackled. (Totally normal tackle.)
 
When the pile of kids got off of him his leg was facing the wrong way.
Jason saw the whole thing as it happened and said it was awful. JR saw the aftermath and kept saying it made him want to throw up. (I believe we can cross doctor/nurse off his career paths.)
 
(Granny Sherry and I were too far away to see anything.)
 
At first they thought he broke his leg, then said he dislocated his thigh, turns out he has a compound fracture in his thigh and will need surgery.
It was bad enough the ambulance from Texas Children's came.
 
Of course the game was called.  I can't help thinking about his poor mom and glad my little babies weren't out there.  Sometimes it's good to be a bench warmer!
 

Monday, October 13, 2014

I Think it was a Holiday

I was pretty excited about sleeping in on the kids' holiday from school today.
All of us (but Jason) get up at 7:00 on a school day. (Jason's long gone by 7:00.)
 
Reed slept til 7:15 and then woke everybody up.
So I got an extra 15 minutes. Awesome.
 
JR had Annie practice and Kyle and Reed had football practice, so there was no holiday there.
But we did go to the movies (Alexander and the Terrible Day) in the middle of the day, so I guess there's that.

Friday, October 10, 2014

So That Was Pretty Awesome

Jason asked me Wednesday if I wanted to go to the (Thursday night) Texans game.
The answer was yes.
 
Then yesterday he told me he had passes to go down on the field before the game to watch the players warm up.
 
 
Now I have happily jumped on the Houston loving J.J. Watt bandwagon as fast as everybody else.
(How can you not love him?) 
And look how close I was too him.  And BTW, he is HUGE!
 
 
And then J.J. and I took a picture together.
I mean, he doesn't actually know we took a picture, but that's just a technicality. 
We are in the same picture after all.
 
 
And though J.J. is definitely the most impressive Texan, there are some others to get excited about, and we saw them too.
That's just super cute Brian Cushing. No big deal.
 
 
And there goes linebacker, Brooks Reed jumping high in the air.

 
And just a few impressive names from the Texans offense taking the field.


And here's Jason taking a picture with the Indianapolis Colts during a team huddle.
(Again, they weren't really aware of his part in the huddle...but that's okay.)


And in case you were wondering, here's what we look like from the sidelines of NRG stadium.