Days off (again)

There were no sad children at our house this morning when they called to say school was called off due to possible icing on the roads. It really was slick, I know because when I went to work I slipped on the sidewalk. Luckily I didn't fall down!

There were no sad children at our house this evening when they once again called to say no school tomorrow due to us being under a blizzard warning. So far, there is no snow, but they are predicting a foot or so.

There were no sad mommas when the email came to say that my walk through at a dam we are rehabbing was called off for tomorrow! Outside in a blizzard doesn't sound fun to me!

No wrestling practice, no basketball game, rescheduled dentist appointment, no school, no work meetings, whatever shall we do? Aaaah, wait a minute, somewhere around here is that chore list!

Medaling Brothers

Colin and Preston both wrestled in a large tournament at Shawnee Heights (in Topeka) today. It was large because it was both novice and open kids. It was nice that we could go to one tournament and see both of them on the same day at the same place. Colin and Preston both got medals today. Preston got 4th place, and I think he had some fun! Colin had an absolute awesome day of wrestling - pinned every one of his opponents and took 1st place!

Preston (in red) really did some good moves today and got several escape points. He is really improving!
Colin likes to help him warm up....I don't know if the one arm push ups helped him or not!?!

Colin (in red here) really showed a lot of technique today. I was impressed watching him! He is learning a lot and is really doing great! And he is having fun, although in this photo he doesn't look like it!

Halfway through the day, Colin had to wrestle his team-mate, so he reversed his singlet and finished the day wearing blue. I cracked up during this match - Colin goes out and tries to do some move and then ended up picking the kid up. He then proceeded to walk around the mat with this kid on his shoulder....it was really funny - like he was giving him some sort of a piggy back ride or something!

Colin later explained to me that he scooped the kid up and was going to do some throw on him, but he had gotten in trouble for that at a different tournament, so he was deciding what to do to him. He ended up laying him down gently and then pinning him! It was still funny and awesome!

This is another one of Preston - I like the action. These little guys are so fast, and at this size (42 pounds) they are so evenly matched that pins don't seem to happen much. Preston made points today, and I don't think this kid was used to someone going tough on him - he started to cry halfway through the match!

We spent all day at this tournament. When I say all day I mean ALL DAY

but I had fun! Our club had several kids wrestling today, so we had a lot of people to watch! It is still funny to me how you can sit in a gym all day and when you get done you are so exhausted! :)

We went from the tournament back to AT&T because they somehow messed up the rebate paperwork. Our little helper friend was working again today, so we got that straightened out and then went on to walmart. Between the wrestling tournament and walmart I can feel official in stating that I have seen every scary, odd, or indecently dressed person in Topeka!

The kids have enjoyed their new phones - Madison reported to me that she sent more texts today than she has in the 3 years she has had a phone. (Thank goodness we went with the unlimited texting!). I was happy that they had new toys to keep them entertained while we were sitting today!

I thought last week would never end - and now I don't know where the weekend went! Time flies when you are having fun! The kids are convinced that we are going to have a huge snow storm and get more snow days this week. I don't have the heart to remind them that they have to make these days up! Better to go now than to have to make up days when the weather is warm! For Quincy's sake I hope the forecast is wrong. Quincy was supposed to have a couple days off school last week while her teacher was on vacation, but Ms. Becky got snowed in with cancelled flights out of Washington DC, so Q ended up with the whole week off. She was not amused with this - she missed going to preschool!

Finally made it to the weekend!

Yesterday, I got to babysit for my newest nephew! Everything was going really well, and Harper was actually acting like she loved him (for the first time) and then she bit him on the finger. That about broke his little heart! And it made me sad too, he is a real screamer!
He is very sweet, and Quincy and I loved getting some baby snuggle time!

Since the weather has been so nice, Harper finally got some snow eating time in! She liked it a lot!

This morning, Cam had a basketball game. I am not sure what happened to make Jim and Cam both scratch their heads at the same time, but I thought this photo was hysterical!

Cam had an absolutely awesome game! He had a bunch of steals, I lost track of how many points and was on fire in the rebounding department! His team won and he and coach Jim were both elated!

I asked Madison to take photos of the game for me....obviously she enjoyed messing with all the camera settings!
Funny girl!

Harper was completely ticked off because she could not get any milk out of this cup - it has a straw and she would not stop tipping it up! She threw an absolute fit about it! I don't know where she could have gotten her stubbornness from!

After the game, Colin and Cam both ran off to birthday parties for different friends. Jim and I took Madison and Harper to town to look into getting a cell phone plan, and taking care of our shopping. Unfortunately, the cell phone shopping took a LOT longer than I was planning - so now we will have to go to walmart after the wrestling tournament tomorrow....we couldn't finish it today or we would not have made it back in time to go to mass tonight. Too much running! The girls are very excited to have 'real' cell phones now though! They had always had 'go phones'....and that worked ok until they got old enough that they wanted to text all the time. I think this will be cheaper, and hopefully it will work out as long as they don't abuse it! We added Colin to the plan as well, he really needs a phone because he is always gone to some activity. I wanted to add Cam, but Cam was absolutely sure he did not want a phone! I am sure he will change his mind within the next year!

Now we are gearing up to watch the KSU game....I hope it is not ugly!

WOW!

I love these photos that our friend Julie took for our Christmas cards this year. Obviously I couldn't use them all, but I still LOVE, LOVE them! I haven't made the time to have them printed like I need to, though! She is incredibly talented and I really appreciated her patience when trying to capture our 7 kids plus my brother's 3. I am sure she has had easier photo shoots before!

It seems like this week has drug on forever!

We have stayed very busy doing I don't even know what. Yesterday, all day seemed to me like a Thursday, which translated into today being Friday. Except that it isn't! I guess I am ready for the weekend...but this one is extra busy so I am not sure that when Monday rolls around I will feel rested and relaxed!

Yesterday, the kids in the Jr. High that qualified got to go on a rewards trip to the ski place in Weston Missouri. Colin qualified, and was so excited about the trip. It had been postponed once before due to nasty wind chills. Anyhow he texted me on his way home - the text went like this:

"we are leaving now....had fun! love skiing- skipped all the training and taught myself to ski."

OK? The last thing I said to him before he left was be careful - don't do anything crazy because I don't want to have to come find you in some ER somewhere!

He told me that he thought the training would be a waste of time - after all - how hard can skiing be? :) This from a kid who has never even touched a ski in his life!

He says he was doing really well until he decided to try some jumps - then he wiped out! He is a nut!

Colin had a basketball game tonight. He usually plays on the B team, and the B team did not play today, but some kids on the C team got benched for fighting, so he played on the C team tonight. He had 4 points but has decided that he should have gotten credit for 2 more since they called him for a travel but he actually got shoved!

The kids all had line dancing practice tonight as well. I think their dance is coming along pretty well, but we are all now really sick of the Watermelon Crawl!

I am having to develop some emergency action plans at work. This is a process that I have never been in charge of before. I attended a meeting last week where they told me to contact the county emergency management and they would help me. So today I was talking to a lady from emergency management in Lawrence and it turned out that I used to ride the school bus with her brothers! It really is a small world! She turned out to be a wealth of information too, and I think it was a good phone call to make! Now if I can just get done so we don't lose our federal funding all will be great!

Did I say I needed a weekend? Well, that probably isn't happening!

One of 'them days'

First of all, here are the bedroom wall photos. I think the paint is more what I would call soft brownish orange than toasted coconut, but I do like it - it looks so clean and new!
Quincy's preschool teacher had an opportunity to go to Washington DC with her husband this week. That means that Quincy has been going to work with me for the past 2 days. Today she was having one of her 'special Q' days where she was just a grouch all day and her listening skills were not up to par either. Honestly, I had a few moments today where enlisting her in military school crossed my mind. Anyhow, at my office this morning she and Harper were playing with some plastic animals....setting up a zoo. Harper kept swiping them and running off, and it was really frustrating Quincy (the zoo director). At one point I hear Quincy shout "dela bela boolaa seeahhla" at Harper and then proclaim 'I don't know why you won't listen to me, I have given you the directions in BOTH English and Spanish!"

This evening, everyone had someplace to be. Colin and Cameron had gavel games practice, the girls had pep band, all the kids were supposed to go to line dance practice, Jim had a special meeting etc etc. I pulled a couple of favors with 4-H moms and then took Preston, Quincy and Harper to the high school game because Mallory and Madison were being recognized during halftime for making the honor roll. I enjoyed listening to the pep band....and SFT has a pretty good varsity team, so the basketball was pretty ok to watch as well.

I was very proud of my girls! They both made the Principal's honor roll this semester. They really work hard!

I wish I could say that the game was all fun, but Quincy had other plans for me this evening. I think her goal of the day was to push me to the edge! I picked out some seats where there weren't many people sitting...that way they could play with their little cars and hopefully not bother anyone. There was only one man in the row in front of us. He was keeping the books for Northern Heights, and appeared to be in his 80's. He was not directly in front of us, but down about 8 feet to my left. Quincy and Preston were playing with their cars and were being ok, when I suddenly looked up just in time to see Quincy give this poor man a wet willy. That's right - finger on the tongue, and in his ear. Complete stranger. She got in some trouble, but probably not enough - after all it was a public place - people go to jail for beating their kids in public! Pretty soon, I realize she is sitting with my parent's neighbor - who happened to tell her that he knows Grandpa Larry. I have no idea how she 'escaped' but she was chatting it up with him. She knows no strangers and no boundaries! It will be a very, very long time before I take her anywhere again! (By long I mean Sunday for wrestling).

I was so flustered by the time the game was over that I walked out of the gym without my camera. I didn't realize it until we were home. Jim volunteered to go back out to see if he could find it. I was sick. The camera is not a great one, but I like it and there were photos on it I could not replace. Mallory went along to show Jim where I had been sitting. No luck there, but our neighbor happened to turn it in to the lost and found! I feel incredibly lucky to have it back! I will be calling him up tomorrow to thank him!

Also today, Jim filed to run for school board. We are hopeful that he will be elected in April. He has a ton of great ideas, and also a lot of years with kids in the school system here!

Done!

I finished the bedroom painting! It only took me a year and a half but who's counting (this question is rhetorical, Jim). I have 2 spots that I have to touch up, but it looks pretty good. I took some photos that I will post so that you can tell me if toasted coconut seems awfully orangeish, but since it is done it doesn't really matter what color it turned out - done is the important part!

Colin had a basketball game at Jeff West tonight. He played almost the entire B game and 2 quarters of the C game too. He is really fast, and steals the ball alot. The gym that the game was in was very, very small. Small gym and Cameron's loud basketball sideline refereeing does not go together. I thought we might be thrown out! The B team won their game - they are really fun to watch. The C team did not win. Colin made 2 points and had 2 fouls - but no technicals so that was an improvement!!

Weekends are good!

Last night, Mallory and Madison volunteered to watch the little ones so that Jim and I could go out for dinner. It was very nice of them, and we really did appreciate it. They had a fun time watching movies and apparently, dressing up! Jim and I had a nice dinner at Hu Hot, Mongolian Barbecue. I did enjoy the dinner, but MSG has not been kind to either of us!

Today, my mom took Preston and Quincy to a friend's grandson's birthday party at Gage Park Carousel. Preston and Quincy had a wonderful time riding the carousel!

While they were at the party, Jim took Cam to his basketball game. Cam's team lost, but Cam made 8 of the 10 points that his team had! He was not very happy with losing that game, and was even more upset with KSU losing! I was watching Frank Martin and Cam and I am not sure who was madder?!?

Colin wrestled in a tournament in Olathe today. I had never been to this part of Olathe, and was a little worried about finding it, but Jim printed me out some awesome directions, and it was very easy! Colin got 3rd place. He wrestled pretty well, but was not overly pleased with himself. He had some really tough matches. I had a good time watching both the wrestling, and the people. Wrestling people never disappoint in their performances!

(Colin is the one in the red)

There was some melting, so the snow finally stuck together well enough to build some snowmen. Colin, Preston and Quincy all had a great time building snowmen. Cam made a pretty cool fort while he was grilling steaks! The fort and the steaks both turned out!

We are now all just relaxing, and enjoying being home! Last night I bought new paint for our bedroom. I am going on record here saying I WILL finish painting it tomorrow after church. I started this project over a year ago, and then ran out of paint. I didn't even try to match what I was using before. I bought all new! Nothing wild, the color is called 'toasted coconut' and I am excited to have this scratched off my to-do list!

Snow Day Take 2

The kids had another snow day today. Harper was very happy to get to spend a day with her best bud, Madison. Quincy was very happy to get to stay home with the kids rather than going into my office!

It really was not so terribly cold, that I caved and took the kids who wanted to go over to the city lake to sled on the dam. There was a lot of snow, but not much wind, so it was ok sledding weather!

Quincy did not last very long, which was totally fine with me! The boys were over there for a lot longer, and Colin even mastered the snow board!

Cam did not have as much luck, and he was one cold kid when I picked him up...due to falling off a snow board he had a lot of snow inside his clothes!

We enjoyed hanging out together!

And I had a ton of help with housework too!

Future Hairdresser?

Madison is so pretty now! Thank you Harper!