Fire Pit '12

After a soccer game one night, Acacia negotiated for a couple teammates to come over for a bit to play.  This turned into inviting the neighbor and having a fire!  The girls had the music on and were dancing all over the patio.  Once it got too cold, the party moved inside and the dancing continued until at least 1a!!  We have some pretty interesting video footage of this.  I will not ask you to endure that pain.

Say it ain't so .....

In the past few years we have averaged about $250-$300 a month in repairs on the van.  Yes, it is time for a new one.  But, we don't want any more debt given the recent attack on my paycheck.  So, we try to fix what has to be fixed and hope that will be the end of the repairs for a while.  Well, now the truck is in need of repairs.  Some water pump or something just cost $600.  The truck needs new tires ($800) and we are putting off at least $1,600 in other repairs to it.  Who knows what repairs the van needs as I have filed all the estimates for all the work it needs away.  My vacuum just broke.  I am hoping it's just a matter of replacing a belt (which I am waiting for to arrive in the mail).  Randy came in on Sunday and said he just mowed the entire yard with our mower that only has 3 wheels!!!  Time for a new mower he says.  I am trying to sell anything I can on craigslist to help cover some of these costs.  I had an interested party in a pair of baseball pants.  I left work a little early to meet the baseball pants person only to have him decide they were too small.  OK - fine.  A $10 sale down the drain.  I walked the rest of the way to the car, turned it on and herd that all telling BING.  Hmmmmmm ... just filled up the tank a day or two ago ($80+), got my seat belt on .....  looking, looking .....

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Acacia is a Wax Statue '12

Our school system never seeses to amaze me! They do sooo much to help the kids learn and try to make it fun. We get tons of communication from the school via letters and notes and emails. As a parent, if you don't know what your kid is doing in school you would have to simply be illiterate. But, just by reading some of the stuff they send our way does not mean we really have a clue. Not too long ago I read that the kids will be doing wax museum statues. They were supposed to pick a person and learn about them and write a paper on them and then dress up like them. As usual, getting Acacia to start any project is like convincing her she should set sail around the world in a row boat. Every excuse in the world comes out as to why this subject sucks, or the teacher is mean, or all the good ones are taken .... and even stuff like "well, you just don't understand" and "it rained during soccer practice ..." will effect why we can't start this new project.

I gave her several ideas, but since a kid did that 4 years ago and there is still a picture of them up somewhere in the school, she can't do that .... That or all the books on people are gone from the library. Really "all" the books are gone?? "ALL" of them ...? I told her to use the internet. Apparently that was not allowed??? After 15 minutes of me trying to help, I tossed in the towel and told her to talk with her teacher the next day. I never heard another word about this project. Until ... I got a call from her at school asking how she was going to get from soccer practice to the wax museum in time. Long story short - soccer from 3:30 to 5p. Wax museum from 5:45 to 6:45p. Soccer practice and the wax museum are both right at the same school. Problem solved.

But, now - how will she get home after the wax museum? I told her I would come around 6:15p so I could see it and then when she was done we would go home.

"NOOOOO!! YOU CAN'T COME!!!"

What? Why?

It's silly. No one else's parents are coming .... blah blah blah ...
Fine. I'll be there around 6:30p to get you.
Fine.

So, I show up and the place is PACKED!! Parents, siblings, grandparents .... All the kids in her unit participated. The project was to learn all about whoever they picked, write and present a paper to the class, fill in a poster all about the person and then dress up as best you can as the person and stand by your poster like you are wax statue for 45 minutes while family and friends walk through and see/read all about you! Well, thank goodness I got there when I did. I only got to see a third of the kids and MAN where they AWESOME!!  X-presidents, sports people, Roy Crock (McDonald's founder), Bill Gates, etc.  It was just unbelievable!  They kids had to pose for this entire time and not move!  A bell would sound ever 15 minutes and they were allowed to change poses at that time but then had to stay still.  Everyone was trying to get them to laugh or get mad, but they held their ground!  Acacia just ignored me (which she gets enough practice at at home, so this was no big deal for her).

 
 I guess eye movement is allowed ...
See the posters behind them?  These tell you all about the person they are supposed to be.

This kid was Milton Hersey.  The paper on the desk says please take one.  I tried to take the one from his hand.  He must have had that dang thing glued in there.  He did not crack a smile or anything.

This is Terry Bradshaw!



Michael Jackson

I was talking with some of the other parents after it was all over. They said this was a big deal at the school. All the 5th graders do it at one point throughout the year. I can't believe Acacia told us not to come!! What a turkey!! I can't wait for Chris to do this. He will be Mario or some character from a Wii game.

Thankfully they do have to be a real person. So, I think he will pick the inventor of the DSi (Nintendo).

Frog Demise '12 (rated R)

For Christmas a couple years ago now, Santa brought the kids African Dwarf frogs.  They are aqua frogs and live in a small tank of water.  You can not play with them or in any way interact with them, but they are (were) kind of cool ... for the first 2 days.  They only live for 2 years max and the first one died after about 18 months.  The second, and larger of the two lived on.  Two years past and now I am just counting the months.  He got slower in his old age and there were times I actually did think he might have passed, but low and behold ... he was still alive.  A couple weeks ago I was checking on him and his tiny little froggy arm was kind of stuck on the wall of the tank - like he stuck it out of the water and against the side of the tank and it dried up and was stuck there.  So, here I am pulling this stupid frogs arm off the side of the tank, trying to rescue it.  He lived .. another couple days anyway.  Now, it's Friday night.  I worked all week, there was a blizzard Friday and everyone left early.  I stayed (it was Zumba Friday).  This worked to my advantage as by the time I left, the snow had stopped and everyone was already home (or in a ditch).  The roads were cleared and it was smooth sailing ... all the way to Target.  I did as much grocery shopping and whatnot as I could and headed home.  Unloaded the car, put the groceries away, sorted about 7 loads of laundry and got that started.  Acacia had a friend over and everyone was doing things that made them happy.  I continued to clean the kitchen and put laundry away.

OK - a little history here.  Acacia has this friend who every since we moved into this house (3+ years now) - when she is over here for whatever reason, she has to poop.  Now, the only reason we know this is because she leaves us with a lovely clogged toilet EVERY FREAKING TIME!!!  Not every now and then or once or twice but EVERY FREAKING TIME!!  I mean EVERY FREAKING TIME!!  There was a week end that I plunged the toilet 3 times!!!  In order to not embarrass or humiliate her we have now explained to her that there seems to be a problem with the toilets in our house and if "anyone" has to poop they poop - flush, wipe - flush, wipe - flush.  Until they are done.  We have had to remind her of this rule but it seems to be working.

Back to the frog.  So, Friday night.  I'm beat.  Groceries, laundry, cleaning, etc.  I want desperately to take a shower and go to bed.  My entire family is sleeping, except for me.  It's 1:30 am and I am soooo close to bed time!  I make one last walk through to check on the kids and pick up wet towels off the bathroom floor when I see it.  The frog has finally croaked (get it??).  So, with a heavy heart I get the little fish net scooper out and try to get this dead frog out of his tank.  What I found odd was that the fish (in the tank next to the frog) was watching me like a HAWK!  I mean, if a fish could give a hairy eyeball look - this crazy fish was doing just that!  So, I hairy eyeballed him right back and focused back on getting the frog out of his tank.  I finally get him contained in the net, say a little pray and go to flush him when low and behold .... a HUGE FREAKING TURD has plugged the toilet!!  REALLY!!  I am standing there with a dead frog in a little net in one hand, a fish giving me the hairy eye ball from his tank on the counter and now I have to plunge this MF'ing toilet AND it's 2am and I just want to go to bed!!  OMG!!  I just could NOT believe it!!

Stupid kid.  Sorry.  No photos to enhance this post.

New Pets '12

The kids have been wanting another dog ever since Ross and Nita went to dogie Heaven.  As much as I would LOVE to get another dog, we are just not home enough to be able to care for it the way I would want to.  We tried the frogs (see next entry for the demise of the last frog) and we have tried fish.  We started with two and were down to one in less than 48 hours.  The fish is holding it's own but you can't pet or in any way play with a fish.  The complaining and begging gets worse and worse.  "Carson has 28 hamsters!"  "Joel has a hamster AND a guinea pig!"  "Carson has a rabbit now too!"  "Anna got a rabbit!"  FINE!!  Save up your money and if you PROMISE to do all the work you can get guinea pigs.  Let the savings begin.  Choirs galore!!  Christmas money and birthday money and before you know it they have more than enough.  When we were at the Humane Society dropping off the donations from Acacia's birthday party we saw two baby piggies!  But there was a hold on them.  A few days later they were gone.  We just kept trying back until ....

Two super cute and fluffy piggies are up for adoption!

Everyone seemed to get along just fine!

So, we decided to take them home!

Left is Domo and right is Bambi.  We did not give them these names but the kids decided to just keep them!

We think they are pretty darn cute!  Much more cuddly than a fish or frog.

It happened .... again .... the ear saga continues '12

I don't recall the date now. I've tried to block this entire ear issue from my mind. BUT, Randy and I continue to notice Chris messing around with his ear. Pulling on it, rubbing it, poking at it. When we ask all he says is that it feels like it's stuffed up, like his noses feels when he has a cold. We decided to take him back to the doctor to see once and for all, what is going on his his ear. Chris was sure nothing else was in there. He insisted!! The doctor looked in and saw ... nothing. Randy kept talking to the doctor and asked him to really check hard as something was not right with the kids ear. Much to our surprise (not really), the doctor finally said ... I do see something. He was not able to get it out with all the fancy tweezers this time. He ended up flushing it out with saline. Even after the doctor removed it, we have not been able to figure out what the heck it is.

Any ideas??  No, it's not the pen.

Soapbox Derby '12

Chris is in his second year of Scouts. He is now a Bear Scout. This Saturday (same day as Acacia's birthday party), Chris got to show off his (Dad's) awesome soapbox derby cars!! Chris (Dad) worked on the cars for days!! Sawing, sanding, drilling, painting, decorating and weighing until finally they were perfect!!

  

 

Randy and Chris left the house before Acacia's party started to drive to the next town and compete.  There was some uncomfortable moments as Chris' car did not even make it down the track for the first race.  Seems he sprayed too much lubricant on the wheels and they got all goobered up and would not rotated.  This stopped the event for several minutes!  The next several races were much more productive.  He received a participation award and got to go home with one of his friends.  I think Randy was more upset with the overall results than Chris was!

Acacia's 11!! 2012

Acacia turned 11 on the 25th!!  She is in the 70th percentile for her height but only the 25th percentile for her weight.  The doctor gave her a perfectly clean bill of health and suggested that she party like a rock star.  Apparently Acacia's version of party like a rock star is this:

 1) invite as many friends over that will fit in the two cars my parents own (12 total)

 2) take them all mini golfing (9 dip n dots)

And that dude in the far back corner of the room pretty much asleep .... is Randy.

Who does NOT like cheese?

3) return home and have pizza (4 pizzas, 1.5 gallons of cool aide)

4) decorate and eat cup cakes (2 cakes, 3 tubs of frosting and multiple sprinkle variations)

 

5) go sledding, play tons of different games, listen to music and dance, watch home videos

6) get ready for bed, select movie to watch, settle down with 8 water bottles and 4 bags of microwave popcorn

7) watch the move and then wake everyone back up that fell asleep and stay up until 3:30am until my Dad comes down and yells at us to go to sleep.

At this point, the parents have to take control as a couple girls have to leave by 10a. I (Lisa) went down stairs at 9:15a. This is what I found.

Everyone was completely OUT!!  I mean OUT!  I went down and up the stairs a couple times, speaking to the two that had to get moving and took these pictures.  When I had the pictures up on the big screen slide show - the girls asked if I took these shots last night?  Like I might have come down at 4am and taken these??  Yep - just keep on sniffing glue my friend!

BUT - one person was awake ... just sitting there hoping her friends would wake up soon so she would have to sit there any longer by herself!  She is also the only one that fell asleep within the first 4 minutes of the movie and stayed asleep!

Everyone did make it to breakfast (2 pounds of bacon, a pound of sausage, 2 full batches of pancakes and about 1.5 gallons of orange juice and left over cool aide)

Once they got the sugar in them from the syrup they decided to hit the slopes again (in their PJ's)

 

Back in from sledding they had hot chocolate, played some more with the hamster (oh, Acacia got to bring the class hamster home for the week end), avoided all parents that came to pick up their kids ....

We were down to one guest by 1p!!  So, for nearly 24 hours we entertained and fed about 9 girls.  No one got hurt or lost but I am sure the words "I am NOT tired!!" were repeated multiple times today and surely with NO attitude what so ever.

This year Acacia decided that rather than having everyone bring a gift for her, everyone was to bring something to be donated to the Humane Society!  We will have to make a trip out there to deliver all the awesome stuff we got!!  And to stay within the theme of the gifts this year, Emme let Acacia select an animal from heifer.com to be donated to a family in need.  Acacia selected a flock of chickens!!

I imagine some of you might be wondering what we did with Chris during this week end?  Check out the next blog entry to find out.