I Had A Few Semi-random Thoughts

Well, my internet's been in and out for a couple of weeks. Now it seems to be more in than out, so maybe we'll actually be able to accomplish something on here.

Thoughts after my first week and a a half of having a 7th grader (some related to that, others not so much.)

1. Why does my son's head turn into a tomato when you mention girls?

2....And he grins from ear to ear, showing his adorable dimples! (I can never get him to do that for school pictures?)

3. What is it with our family and death on school picture day? My grandma died on school picture day and we got the news just before. My son got the news right before(and I do mean RIGHT before) they took his pictures that his best friend's baby brother died. Still don't know waht happened. I'm guessing SIDS, but do not yet know. He was 2 months old and perfectly healthy. Jeremiah loved that kid and I know his family did, too. Please pray for them. Jeremiah's friend, Christian, is also in the 7th grade, and they have a few other kids as well.

4.In all my selfishness (am I sick or what?!) I thought, "Great, now I'm definitely not going to get a smile out of him in his pictures." In light of everything, WHO CARES!!!!!!

5. Is it really necessary for boy's to stick their hands down their pants every 20 minutes or so?

6. Why do they not care if they get hurt as long as they got to hurt someone else in the process? (Tackling in football.)

7. Why don't we just paint my car yellow and paint "Taxi Cab" on the side, cause that is what I am. I would really rather not live in my car, but alas, I am.

8. I had a whole lot of thoughts for you yesterday. Today, not so much. But then, that was before I got the above news about nearby families baby. Why must things like this happen?

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping: It's A Girl's Life!

Wow! The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity! Mostly with my darling girls! The Cub Scout weekend camp that is coming up this weekend is having a medieval theme, so Josh has decided to dress up as a king, since he is Camp Director, and therefore, in charge of the camp. (So, he is kinda king, if you think about it.) And, of course, as always, his girls are his princesses! And they are! I mean really, they don't need to dress the part. They KNOW they are!!!! That's one of many things I love about my man! But...he wants everyone else to know it, too. So we went shopping the last couple of days. For dresses and tiara's...and we just had to slip in a few other fun things :)

Yesterday, I got busy with some stuff I do for a little extra cash, online, so it was late in the evening before I was ready to shop. We went to the Dollar Tree first, to look for tiara's. They had really cheapy cardboard ones, which we didn't want, but I needed some other things like notebook paper and journals. Things like that, so we did buy a few things. We also bought some cheap, but very colorful and sparkly make-up for the girls for the weekend. They're so excited about getting to wear make-up that they've been playing around with it all day! We also got some pretty nail polish, which they also couldn't wait to experiment with! Girls! You gotta love 'em!

We then went to Claire's at the mall, because I knew they would have some fantastic tiara's. After all that I've been through, and even though I know I've got a long ways to go from here (who doesn't, really, if you think about it?) I thought it was only appropriate that I get one for myself, too. Angela and I got actual metal ones. I don't know if they're real silver or not, but who cares! They had what looked like probably cubic zirconia that sparkle! Wow! Do I ever love me some bling! Even if it is fake! (No excuses, Josh! I still prefer the real thing :)) Chloe got a plastic one with a pink poofy thing at the bottom. (Hey, did I ever claim to be sophisticated and know what these things are called? No judging!:)) She also insisted on a wand to go with. Okay, she didn't actually insist. I never would have put up with that, but she sure wanted one, and I was having so much fun, I wasn't about to argue! So we bought the wand as well! So much fun! I asked Angela if she thought it was bad that my tiara was more expensive and had more on it than there's. She said, no way! Mine should be bigger and fancier! After all, I'm mom, and therefore the queen, even though I'm God's princess, just like them! She said it shows my "authority" (such a big word for a little girl), so I went with it! Afterwards we went to the new frozen yogurt place, "Jamms," that just recently opened up in town. Angela and I've been dying to go. As soon as the sign went up indicating what they were building there, we were excited. Not as excited as we were when we were told, originally, that IHOP was looking to build there, but excited, none the less! It was delicious, and Chloe particularly like the spinning stools at the bar! (It's not a real bar. They don't sell alcohol there.) They were pretty cool! They had the little step thing like a hair stylist's chair and adjusted heights kind of like them, as well. So cool! Yes, we're easily amused. It was self-serve and you pay by the ounce, so that was fun! They had all sorts of toppings, candy ones, and fruit! Delicious!!!! Love it! Definitely going again sometime!

So, then, today we needed to get Angela a proper princess dress. Chloe already had one, but Angela needed one, so we took off again to shop this morning! First we went to our favorite thrift store, The Hope Center, and looked around just in case. No princess dresses, but we did find Angela a "new" bike, which we've been looking for forever! We also got the girls some barbies and we got some laundry baskets for their rooms! I also bought Chloe a pair of adorable shoes, she just had to have (you know how these things work, right?:)) and we found a small and very simple sewing machine for small projects! So, of course, we had to have that, too!!!! So, then, it was off to the mall again. This time, to Ross, where we found a very frilly, white dress for Angela. It was darling! We tried on the size 12, but it didn't seem like it was quite as long as it should be, so I found one in a size 14. It fit!!! (gasp) She's growing up so fast, I can hardly stand it!

Of course, after that, we had to have a "dining" experience to go with our shopping, so we did our traditional Orange Julius run. I didn't do it the day before, because I wanted to try the new fro-yo place instead! Of course, it was great, as usual! Then, we wandered up and down the mall, sipping our Orange Julius's. So much fun! (How many times have I said that now!?!) Then, we came home.

I do have to admit, Jeremiah seems to be a bit jealous, especially last night, when he discovered me and the girls spread out over my bed in our pj's settling in to sleep. He snagged my iPhone and said rather bitterly, I think is what I heard in his tone, "Since you guys are having yourselves a little party it seems, I think I should get this." I was fine with it, and I'd actually promised him earlier when he complained about the frozen yogurts (he complained about the Orange Julius's today, too) that he and I would have a mother-son date, just the two of us, soon. He was excited about that! How blessed am I, to have an almost 13-year-old son, who's excited about the possibility of some time alone with his mama?!! Now, I just have to figure out how I'm gonna make that happen, and what we're gonna do. I mean, after all, I'm obviously not going to buy him a tiara and a princess dress :)!!!!!! I'm thinking it will mostly have to be food, considering what he was most jealous of :) I was going to take him to Bumpers (the local arcade, if you can call it that) and spend some time in the batting cages, but we discovered today that they've gone out of business!!!!! So, unfair!!!! I was even going to attempt to hit a few balls myself, and let him laugh at me!!!! I'm sure he would have loved that! Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And, of course, unlike him, the girls can't stay home by themselves, so what am I gonna do with them while I hang with Jeremiah. After all, recruiting season is about to begin for Josh after school starts back up again, so I won't hardly see him at all for a few months! Trust me, this is how this works! There are certain times of the year, where it just is sun-up to sun-down with his job, and fall is one of those times!!!!

One More "Wounded" Picture And Jeremiah As A Baby

Apparently Jeremiah took the pictures that are on my camera, of his own "battle wounds." Apparently, battle wounds are always worthy of camera space with boys! They show them off like some sort of trophy! What's up with that?! To me it's just another thing that will probably produce another scar when I get hurt! I guess that's just how we women are. Constantly worried about how everything's going to affect the "beauty" factor! But the "manliness" factor with them is totally different! I'd forgotten I had this on my camera. This is actually a picture of a picture that's on my wall! Normall we'd try to take it out of the frame, but it's stuck to the glass and when we took Angela's baby picture out a few years ago, we ripped the bottom of it. We were not about to make that mistake again! We needed a baby picture for his graduation! I absolutely love this picture and yes, he has always been that adorable!!!
By the way, Sojourner5, thank you for reminding me not to hug and kiss him and call him my little man when I drop him off at junior high!!! LOL! He's normally the type of kid who hugs and kisses ME in public, and tells the other kids, "Hey, what's wrong with you! Don't you love your mama? You should love your mama!" But I would imagine that at least for a while he'll be feeling a little awkward around all the students he doesn't yet know, so having me hugging and kissing him wouldn't help! And I certainly hope I remember not to call him my little man! That would be humiliating in front of people he hopes will be new friends! The only reason I'm not commenting in a comment is for some reason when I try to comment, Blogger no longer recognizes my account, even though OBVIOUSLY this is my account!!!
Anyway, this is my little man when the "little" part of that statement was much more accurate! People have been pointing out to me when they see me with him, lately, that he's just on the verge of overshooting me, heighth wise! I have no doubt, he understands that does not make me "below" him! He knows, because we've taught him well, that no matter how big he gets, I'm still the parent and he's still the child! At least until he moves out, and then that relationship will shift a little, as long as he doesn't want money :) He also understands that he will always be my baby, but he would prefer if I didn't call him that in front of his friends (I've slipped a time or two!)!

The Last Of The Play Pictures!

I realize that this is a horrible picture, but I wanted you to get an idea of just how small my children's charter school really is! They limit their enrollment to keep it this way, so they can have plenty of one-on-one time for each of the kids. Yet another reason Junior High is probably going to be a total shock to Jeremiah's system next year! All of a sudden all of those now seventh graders that have been going to all of the different elementary school's in Moscow will be converging into one junior high school! Well, some of them will probably go to private schools or to the other charter school, which does include 7th and 8th grades, but you know what I mean. The majority of them. It is tradition that at the end of the play they invite all of the classes to come up on stage together and that's what this is, and they sing one last song together. It's kind of sad that this will be Jeremiah's last year at the charter school. In fact, we realized at the beginning of the year that this is the last year that all of my kids will be in the same school at the same time. I could bawl right now over it, but I'm not going to! I'll wait till the fall when I drop my little man off at the junior high!!! It's quite funny, cause they line the kids up by grades with the kindergartners in front, but you couldn't see my sweet little second grader, cause she's so tiny! All of the much taller 1st graders buried her! She would have fit much better height wise with the kindergartners! Poor Chloe! She had to be tiny like her mama, didn't she!?! She absolutely hates that people think she's much younger than she is! I told her what my mother always told me, even though I didn't believe her at the time! I told her someday she'll appreciate looking younger than her age!!! I definitely do now!!! I love that people look at me and think for sure, I got married right out of high school! Not true, but thank you!!!!! I was actually 22 when I got married, but don't tell my kids! I still tell them I'm 25! They don't believe me! They also are not convinced that I have eyes in the back of my head! Why did I have to have kids that are so much less blonde than me, even though two of them are blonde!!!! This is Jeremiah as an Aztec Ruler. He plays the part so well, don't you think? He looks like he should be a ruler! Certainly not in my home, although he'd like to!!! He made that headdress himself! Are you impressed?!And this is Angela to your left, with very dark clothes on and a very dark backdrop. Not a good combination, but hopefully you can see her! She's supposed to be a Texan. She's wearing a cowboy hat (it's foam. We paid 3 dollars for it at Michael's!) a very western looking vest I bought years ago at a thrift store and figured we'd never have a use for. Angela just liked it, and jeans and cowboy boots! When she first told me she needed a costume for a Texan woman I immediately sat up straight and said, "Okay, somebody get me some bleach and a teasing comb!" My kids immediately rolled their eyes, cause they knew exactly who I was thinking of! When Angela suggested a cowboy hat and cowboy boots (excuse me, cowGIRL hat and CowGIRL boots! She always corrects me on that!) I said, "But I've never seen Beth Moore wear a cowgirl hat or cowgirl boots!" (Yes, I actually did make that gender distinction myself during this conversation! Aren't you proud of me?!) Of course, Chloe wanted to know what a teasing comb was, and when I explained it to her she immediately wanted one!!! Doesn't it just figure that with her super fine, flat hair that you can hardly do anything with she wants big hair in the WORST way! Come to think of it why couldn't she have been the Texas woman?! We could have skipped the first part (the bleach) since she's as blonde as anyone could possibly be already!!! But, no, the whitest kid in school was a slave! Go figure! (Again, not being racist! It's just a fact that slaves in America were black! Get over it! You can't change our history, as ugly as it may be!) Anyway, she did convince me to go with the extremely stereotypical idea of all Texans being cowgirls! Ugh! Besides, it was easier than bleaching her hair and teasing it! Although, that would have been fun!!! Haven't done that since my cowgirl days!! Now, I suppose I'm going to have to tell you about that part of my life someday!!!

Jeremiah's Owie

Neither of these pictures are very good, but this is what Jeremiah's ankle looked like after he slid into home plate with shorts on. He was safe, too! He says it wasn't worth it, though! He had a limp for a while and he said there was dirt in it and it stung. This was at school on the playground obviously. He wears baseball pants when he practices with his team. And, of course, when he plays a game! He had a game the next day, too, and had a bit of a limp still!

More Dumpster Pics

Some people post pictures of pretty girls in Easter dresses the day after Easter, others post pictures of silly preteen boys huddling up to a dumpster in baseball uniforms and jackets (the smart ones wore jackets or at least the ones with smart moms who are mean to their kids and make them wear jackets!). Hey, what can I say, I like to be different! Maybe we'll do girls in pretty Easter dresses tomorrow. Jesus came to save silly boys relying on dumpsters for heat, too! (Lord, knows, they definitely need saving!!!) See the boy with his arms stretched out on the dumpster! This is what they all were doing moments earlier. The ones with jackets had to spend less time hugging the dumpster!!!!

Hugging The Dumpster

This was before opening ceremonies. The boys totally cracked me up! At one point in the morning while they were waiting for their instructions they were all hugging the dumpster! The metal was warm and as is typical in Idaho, even though it was fairly warm later in the day, in the morning, it was COLD!!! It was windy and cold! It ended up being a nice day though really. I mean you still had to wear a light jacket, but that's really good for this time of year, around here! It was the best opening day we've ever had! And, again, Jeremiah's team won! Go Phillies! (You're gonna hear me say that a lot around here for a while:))