Judge's Cup

Getting up 5:45 a.m...

Driving 2 hours each way...

Working out 12 hours a week...

Having your best meet ever...

Priceless!

And a big thanks to hubby for the new lens (70-300mm) that allowed me to finally be able to take some gymnastics pictures. A lot to learn, but so nice to have the memory!

And to Morgan's fan club, thanks so much for driving all the way up. She was glad to have a cheering section yesterday.

Back to School-April Fools!

This is Garrett on his first day of school.

This is Garrett (totally annoyed that I brought my camera and had the nerve to take a picture) headed to his classes as the BMOC (8th grader!).

And this is Morgan.

This is the front of Morgan's school.

What is wrong with these pictures? Well Morgan is in her pajamas and that big tall pole you see in this last picture is the news crew covering a crazy turn of events that led to the school closure.
Last night we received an automated call at 11:30 letting us know that some mold that had just been discovered on exterior classroom walls was more invasive than believed and showed elevated levels in some of the classrooms. So they cancelled school until they can decide how to accomadate all the students.

And this is poor Jack...who must put up with one more day of torture by his sister!

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How Do They Know?

Jack's first Oreo. He immediately broke it apart and started licking the center. We don't buy Oreos that often so I doubt he's seen anybody do it before. Seriously, are you just born knowing how to eat an Oreo?

August 12th

1. Back to school clothes shopping.
2. Meltdown at Justice...couldn't get out of there fast enough.
3. Probably will change Jack to forward facing by the end of the month.
4. This is the 6.7 seconds between my housecleaners leaving and our arrival home where our house is clean.
5. 8 loaves of banana bread were mailed to us. Great surprise, but don't know who to thank.
6. Calling to wish Nana a very happy birthday.
7. Morgan...after being lost a month, happy to have found her iPod.
8. Big boy on the slide.
9. Little boy on the slide.
10. Playing with Garrett is possibly Jack's favorite part of the day.
11. Last golf tournament in Vallejo, CA.
12. Garrett's 4th place finish. Had he competed as a 14 year old, he would have tied for first.

And here's a little golf video. Chris took this at the golf course. I would say at this rate, he could probably finish 18 holes in 4 days :-).

Cards

First...sorry, there are no handmade cards to be found in this post. I'm just not a card maker. Maybe if I catch up with all my scrapping it will free up some time for card making, but I don't see that happening in the near future.

Anyway, I generally buy my cards at grocery stores because the thought of bringing Jack into a card store conjures up the image of us being escorted out, both of us crying and screaming. However, I had a couple graduation cards that I needed to buy and that darn grocery store had the nerve to replace them with Halloween cards so I headed over to a Hallmark store while I had a sitter the other day. Well OMG, I have been missing out, who knew that Hallmark had gotten so hip, funny, and cheap?
They have a line of cards called Edge of Motherhood cards for $.99. I scooped up several.





Good stuff, huh? They have cards that address every aspect of parenthood-from pregnancy to teenagers.
Click here to see more Hallmark's Edge of Motherhood cards.
If this is old news, forgive me, but I think this proves I NEED TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE MORE OFTEN!

Mad Scientists

Seven years ago, Morgan met Megan as her mom and I were dropping off our boys in first grade. We learned that the girls were one month apart and would shortly be moving in the same neighborhood just three doors away.
The girls have been on the same softball team, soccer team, ballet class, and gymnastics class over the years. They've shared all their birthdays, trick-or-treated together, carpooled and done countless activities together. But their absolute favorite activity is concocting potions. These two partners in crime have used shampoos, soaps, powders, toothpastes, condiments-you name it, they've used it.
Unfortunately Megan is moving to Wisconsin next week. So last night as a last hoorah they had a sleepover which included a night of extreme potion making-building their own pizzas, making their own facial masks, and making their ice cream.
Just thought I'd share one of our favorite summer treat, so easy and it gets rave reviews.
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 1/2 cup milk or half & half
* 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
* 6 tablespoons rock salt
* 1 pint-size plastic food storage bag (e.g., Ziploc)
* 1 gallon-size plastic food storage bag
* Ice cubes

How to make it:

1. Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
2. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
3. Place the small bag inside the large one, and seal it again carefully.
4. Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes.
5. Wipe off the top of the small bag, then open it carefully. Enjoy!

(Each girl doubled the recipe, but I don't recommend more than that in one bag. Also we added a smidge of mint extract and chocolate chips and Morgan proclaimed it the best one yet. I've even done this for Garrett's birthday party and had 10 boys make their own.)

Debate

Well I suppose this picture can spawn a couple of debates. We're going to bypass the evolution versus creation debate and move on to more important debate taking place in the my house.
Last weekend was a big soccer tournament-2 games on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. On Sunday I left the house at 6:00 in the morning for an 8:00 game. The next game was not till 3:00 and Chris was going to join us along with Morgan and Jack. I was pretty clear what to pack in the diaper bag-a few extra diapers, something to drink, some cars to play with, and a healthy snack. They arrived, diaper bag is full and includes a bag of Nutter Butters to which I say, "why would you bring cookies?". His reply, "Those aren't cookies. They're healthy, they have peanut butter." Really? The fact that they are found in a cookie aisle would have tipped me off, but no, he's standing firm on this issue.

BTW~Jack broke the "cookies" apart and just licked the peanut butter out and discarded the "cookies".