Tales of a Shoebox Princess

It's a Sunday morning, I have an hour before I have to leave for church, my Sunday School lesson is prepared, the kids get themselves ready for church, I've eaten lunch, so now what? Blog! It's almost the end of the school year, which means I tend to think about how old my babies are and wonder where the time went. Hayley is almost done being a junior and Matt is almost done being a freshman. I started this blog back in 2008 when Katie was just graduating, and Matt was in 3rd grade. It boggles the mind. Ok enough of that. I gots pictures. Band concert in the gym. Matt looked all nice and I think he knew where I was sitting. Trombonist in action   This was taken at the Robotics end-of-the-year banquet. The girl sitting next to Matt had no problem being photographed. Matt, on the other hand, would not cooperate. This was the best shot I could get of him. Matt and the KING TeC robot. I don't remember the name they gave it. Matt helped a little b...

I'm in danger of turning my own personal Valentine's day into Christmas-like intensity. It's been that way for a few years. I don't know why I like to have so much personal satisfaction sunk into Feb 14. And it's not about what's in it for me as much as what's in it for me when I watch the kids do their treasure hunt and what's in it for me when I sit down to a heart-shapes-and-shades-of-red-infested table at dinner time. I guess I do it for love. And if that isn't a bad pun, I don't know what is. I just love to do it. I love making up puzzles. Thankfully the kids are receptive to the idea of brain teasers and tests of random knowledge based on family favorite TV shows, movies, and silliness mixed in with general knowledge. A small sampling of the puzzle clues from this year's treasure hunts for Matt and Hayley: Where souffle girl crash landed The poltergiest who fears only the Bloody Baron The message John thought he got from the f...

I got a Samsung mini-tablet for my birthday, and with it came a very lovely white charging cord. The best thing about this charging cord is that it's fast. It juices up my phone and the tablet much faster than any of the other cords I have hanging around the house. Servo has recently discovered this cord and likes nothing better than to chew on it. I keep it in my room and over the last two days, if I forget to shut my bedroom door for any length of time, I'll go in my room and find Servo with the cord in his mouth. This makes me very angry. Magic likes to come in our room too, but all he does is hide out under the bed and lick himself. So, now I have to be better at remembering to put the cord in a drawer when it isn't being used, and I have to remember to shut the bedroom door. Magic will have to find somewhere else to lick himself and Servo will have to stay out of my way for a while. In other news, I made the mistake of taking Hayley out for driving practice y...

Bet you can't guess what I'm counting down. Anyway, this post isn't about that. It's about this: It's a snow cave. It was also where Matt slept last night (well, for most of the night). The details are still unknown, but I have verification from Jim that Matt dug the cave, shoved the cardboard in it, and bundled up in whatever woolen gear he had and zipped himself into the heavy duty sleeping bag and spent the night in this hole until 4 a.m. All I can think of is COLD and hopefully he slept with his feet towards the back of the cave, because I would get the willies, the heebie-jeebies, the creepy-crawlies, and the hackles raised if he had gone in head first. I don't consider myself especially claustrophobic, but if I went in head-first and stayed there any more than a minute, I'm pretty sure a panic attack would find its way in there with me and take up most of the air available for breathing. By the way, yes, Matt and Jim are at a scout campout o...

In a good way. I was actually motivated to do housework. I also actually had time to do it. I had the whole day yesterday to get things accomplished. Too bad my quadriceps felt like dogs had shredded them, thanks to an overzealous personal trainer who "just wanted to see where I was at fitness-wise." Never trust personal trainers! after three sets of walking lunges, I wanted to chop my legs off. And then his. (I signed up at a little fitness club and with the sign-up I got two free sessions with a personal trainer. First they get you to sign up, then they try to kill you for free) But I kept going--squat/jumps, squats on a half-ball thing, a wall sit, and then the trainer said, "Last one, burpees." I said, "Nope. I'm not going to do them." I would have put my foot down, but everything from my hips downward seemed to be possessed by Jell-O. So anyway, my legs hurt. But I did housework anyway. In 15 minute increments. I love the 15 minute plan. I set...

I get to talk to my out-of-the-country boys this week! Elder Paul on Tuesday, and Elder Jimmy on Wednesday. We are so excited! Katie and Christian (and possibly Morgan) will be on facetime with us for Paul's call. If you have any questions for either Paul or Jimmy, post them in the comments and I will copy them down and pose them to my sons. I will probably forget the answers, but if I don't, I can relay them to you or post answers here. In other Christmas news, I took the photo for this year's picture ornament of my children. The picture is of whoever is home at Christmas time, and we're down to two kids in the picture this year. It's been nearly 20 years since I had only two kids in the picture. I didn't get happy cooperation from the participants this year, well at least from one. The other one was happy to oblige with picture-taking. Time to print the picture out and stick it in the photo frame and put it on the tree.

I don't think I posted pics of Matt actually in his marching band uniform.  At least not on this blog.  I must rectify this. 7 or 6 trombones led the big parade Here is our trombonist! There. Pictures of Matt, in his marching band uniform, playing his instrument or marching. I'm done here. Oh wait, not quite. I'm done with Marching Band for this year, but not done with yammering on about my precious charming little children. I saw a quote on Matt's facebook page--said by Matt himself--that either makes me want to give him a good pounding with a broom, or laugh myself silly. He said " the pro to having twins is that when a guy is trying to steal one baby, you can beat him with the other." Have I said before that he strikes me as kinda weird? Hayley came home from school one afternoon, and the first thing she said to me is: "My friends are telling me things about Matt. Like they are glad he's in Robotics because he's SO funny....

Today was apple-picking day. We have two apple trees in the back yard, one that grows regular sized apples, and one that is some kind of dwarf apple tree that grows smaller sized apples (but they are bigger than crapapples, which, in my estimation, are a total waste of tree. Crabapples are worthless as a fruit because they are too small to do anything with unless you use them to chuck at annoying neighborhood kids to try to get them to leave you alone).  Both trees are heavily laden this year. The apples have started to drop from the tree, and have become fodder for wasps and lady bugs. The wasps like both kinds of apples, but the lady bugs prefer the dwarf apples. I don't mind sharing a few apples with the insects of southern Minnesota, but just a few. They can have the ones on the ground. I get the ones in the tree, thankyouverymuch. Mine. So I had to pick them before the bugs moved upwards.  (Plus Mike wants my apples and I'm going out to SoDak on Sunday. Gotta have 'e...

Meta Con. I neglected to write about it. Hayley and two of her friends wanted to go. Meta Con is a convention held in Minneapolis for people who are fanatics of anime, sci-fi, gaming, and who knows what else. The cool thing to do when going to a convention of this kind (and there are many around the US) is dress up. Hayley and her friends decided on "Steampunk" as their theme. There aren't really any characters associated with steampunk; it's more of a style of dress and a literary genre (think sci fi of the Victorian era). Hayley made her vest and her bloomers (I helped with both, but she did most of the sewing). She and her friends painted nerf guns to look more metallic and wood like (Hayley's "piece" is tiny and in a holster on her left leg). I went along to chaperone. Not that I didn't trust the kids, but it helps to have an adult around to corral and make suggestions. And to drive. Lovely face We found a room filled with board and...

But no picture of him in those until football season gets underway. Some notes on school schedules: Our high school seems to be having trouble putting together viable schedules for Hayley and Matt this year. Hayley has overlapping classes--First quarter Concert band goes from like 11-12 and AP Comp goes from 11:30 to 12:30. And she has an open period (unasked for) at the end of the day. Really, high school? Also, during quarter 2 and 4, Matt has concurrent classes. We really like quarter 4--Spanish and Science for first hour. We were thinking perhaps they are going to teach Science in the Spanish language. Also also, Matt has been put in the marching band for first quarter, hence the spats and a hat title. As long as I have had kids in this school district, freshmen aren't in marching band unless they are also in Wind Ensemble (like Paul). Matt is not in Wind Ensemble. So I thought, OK fine, they must need trombone players in marching band and then he'll be in the fre...

This morning I went for a walk with Hayley. It was surprisingly easy to get her to come with me. All I had to do was yell down the stairs, "Who wants to go on a walk with me?" It wasn't a very vigorous walk since both of us had our electronic devices with us. I took flower pictures and Hayley looked up geeky meme funnies. She didn't complain once or whine in any way. The only disturbing thing she said on the whole walk was "Mom you have a bug on your back." She didn't even laugh as I flailed and shuddered while trying to remove it. Aside from the bug, it was a nice walk. Here are some of my flower pictures. And a shoe picture. You'll have to guess whose shoes are whose.

Tomorrow morning around 8 a.m. we take Paul to the airport. He has spent most of the day packing and sorting through things. We got the last few things on his list, one which was a certain kind of insect repellant that is available only at a few places. Last night we had a collective near-heart-attack moment when Paul couldn't find his passport. Katie had wanted to look at it before she left for the airport, but it wasn't in all the places we thought it could be. My stomach was churning as I helped Paul search. Jim said he hadn't even seen it since we got it in the mail with Paul's travel plans. But he thought he would check his truck anyway, even though he KNEW it wasn't going to be there. And yet it was, in a manila envelope under some other papers. It's a good thing Katie asked to see it, otherwise we all would have assumed it was where it needed to be, and then tomorrow morning would have been even more hectic, scary, and panicky, with possible tears. ...

I keep thinking that I'm going to update Paul's countdown daily, but it hasn't happened that way. There is too much to do. Like right now, I'm making icing. Just a sec while I pour in another cup of powdered sugar. K I'm back. This is batch one of the icing. I still need 2 more batches. And I need 2 or 3 more batches of ground beef cooked. Maybe another block of cheese grated. All this for Paul's farewell. You're coming, I hope? Anyway, since I don't blog like I used to, I'm going to offer up some pictures. Just a few. And I'll probably blog even less when Paul leaves, mostly because I'll be keeping up two missionary blogs for a while. Here Paul eats a Juicy Lucy. It was his request to eat a Juicy Lucy. He got to go to the 5-8 Club again today for lunch with Jim, Granddaddy, and Matt. This picture is not associated with Paul in any way. It's just a picture of Lemmy. It looks like the crockpot is on, but it wasn't plu...